Travel Articles: Whale Watching

A birthday gift to my mom and me! We decided to celebrate our 30th and 60th birthdays with a small-ship cruise to Alaska. What an amazing adventure! It was the perfect mix of our interests such as kayaking, beautiful scenery such as glaciers and such a fun way to ring in those big birthdays.

Yes! The largest temperate rainforest in the world. Little did I know that a cruise in Alaska could also be an adventure. Kayaking, camping, hiking, and swimming with icebergs...this is an adventure of a lifetime aboard the Wilderness Explorer.

A beautiful journey into the Inside Passage in Alaska. We explored Juneau, Glacier Bay National Park Headquarters and Thomas Bay. We went kayaking, hiking, whale watching, went on zodiac cruises, explored glaciers and their crystal clean ice and had a grand old time on the MS Endeavour.

Two weeks in Ecuador, including an 8-day cruise on the San Jose in the Galapagos, 3 nights of land-based explorations on the islands of Santa Cruz and San Cristobal, and several days exploring the Highlands around Quito, Cotopaxi and Otavalo. Fulfilling my lovely partner's lifetime dream of seeing Darwin's inspiration!

Follow my Dad and I as we venture 120 degrees of latitude south to the frozen continent!

The Polar regions are true adventure destinations that are still being discovered by even the most well-seasoned travelers. Planning a trip to the Arctic or Antarctica can be intimidating to people who have a lot of travel experience, let alone those who do not. As experts in Polar travel, let us make it easy to determine the best trip for you!

Which Polar region is home to penguins? Or how about those elusive narwhals? Before your travels, it will be helpful to learn more about the different species that inhabit the Polar regions of the Arctic and Antarctica. You may be surprised to learn the differences!

We spent over a week in Alaska going from Sitka to Juneau. Lots of kayaking, icebergs, bears, and so many whales! An incredible group of people aboard ship. They call this a small ship cruise, but it was so much more of an adventure than cruise!

I took my granddaughter to Alaska for her 8th grade graduation, we had an amazing time on our Alaska Cruise. We enjoyed delicious food, wonderful activities, and incredibly views. We I encourage any and everyone to take this Alaska cruise. Awesome!!!

Trip of a life time. What a fantastic trip.
Day 1

Santiago to Punta Arenas
Had a 10:10 flight to Punta Arenas, the taxi driver was very happy with the non traffic. We got to the gate and noticed people lining up and thought that it was way too early but we got in line anyways. Turned out to be a flight to northern Chile so the gate keeper …

Albatross. Penguins. Seals. Whales. Giant waves. Glaciers. Spectacular land- and seascapes. All this and more on a 17 day voyage from Ushuaia, Argentina, to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia Island and the Antarctic Peninsula.

Liz Fleming catches Arctic fever on trip up north! Read about her exploration of a remote land covered in ice and wonder.

My daughters, Katy and Becca, and I visited the 7th continent for Christmas break on our Antarctica trip.

Matthew Long's description of Antarctica in the "Adventure of a Lifetime: Voyage to the Great Unknown in Antarctica".

We flew across the Drake Passage from Rio Gallegos, Argentina to King George Island on an Argentine Air Force C-130 and cruised on the Ocean Nova for 4 days before flying back to Punta Arenas, Chile.The weather could not be any better! With temperatures in the mid-40s, we often dropped our jackets on the rocks near the beach and hiked up to see …

Last June, travel journalist Liz Fleming joined the Arctic Kingdom team for the polar bear and narwhal safari north of Pond Inlet in Sirmilik National Park. Her blog posts give a day-by-day look at life on the ice, 80 kilometers from anywhere.

Awe -- "an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like." Yep, that sums up my ~3 weeks in and around Antarctica. Always at the top of my must-do list, I decided to stop talking about it and start living it! The following journal recounts my incredible …

A trip beyond expectations, seven friends set out to cruise the southern seas.

A trip that blurs the lines between ecotourism and black sea turtle restoration, community development and genuine cultural exchange. Join a local group of fisher-conservationists on a journey through majestic Magdalena Bay in the Baja Peninsula to participate in a sea turtle conservation project recognized around the world as a model for …

Our Un-cruise Christening on the Safari Endeavor. I am absolutely honored to have taken part in the inaugural journey of the Safari Endeavor before she ventures on to Alaska this summer. We had the pleasure of staying aboard the ship over the weekend and kayaking, eating gourmet food, and relaxing. My un-cruise experience surpassed every …

What a breathtakingly beautiful area Patagonia is! It is a land of contrasts: with flat arid plains around Puerto Madryn and Peninsula Valdez and its penguin colonies and Estancias, to the awesome glaciers and otherworldly rock formations of El Calafate near the central western border of Argentina. At its southernmost tip are the enormous craggy …

We were on board the holiday 2011 sailing of L'Austral with stops on the Falkland Islands, South Georgia Island, Antarctica, the South Shetland Islands and Cape Horn.

When my wife and I finally went to Antarctica in November on the Ocean Nova, a “Quark” ship that carried us and 62 other passengers, it was the highlight of the year, if not a lifetime (well not yet!).