Solo Trip to Explore Antarctica

The best way to explore and truly experience a place or event is to let go of any assumption, or expectations and know that it will all be okay in the end.

This was a difficult reality for me in the first 36 hours of my 8-day Antarctica journey. I was on the trip of a lifetime that started in Punta Arenas, Chile and would take me to the Antarctic Peninsula. Myself and the 66 other travelers would be avoiding the 2-day Drake Passage open ocean crossing, and instead take a 2-hour flight just over 1000km to Frei Station on King George Island, that is part of the South Shetland Islands.

The first somersault came during dinner on night one. Our hospitality team updated us that they did not have a flight plan. The weather windows weren’t clearing and they could not predict an accurate time for us to fly south. So we spent that evening standing by and keeping our fingers and toes crossed.

One thing to understand when flying to Antarctica is that the flight is finicky. Due to the severe environment you are flying into, the intense weather that can form over the Drake Passage and the rather short and narrow runway at Frei Station, you only get to fly when the weather is right.

Once reality sunk in that we still didn’t have an ETA for our Antarctica flight a sense of camaraderie swept through the group. People began to commiserate, discuss their packing strategies, and find other topics to distract us from the anxious waiting we all felt.

The second let down came the next morning at breakfast, after a night of tossing and turning and hoping for good news. The hospitality team updated us that we still did not have a flight plan. The airline was continuing to monitoring the weather and there would be an afternoon update.

In an effort t distract myself I set out to explore Punta Arenas, Chile possibly one of the windiest places I’ve ever visited. The Viento Magallanes comes off the Straight of Magellan and just batters the coastline with wind.

I returned to the hotel for lunch and the lobby was a buzz. We had received the message we’d all been waiting for from the hospitality team, We Have a Flight Plan! We would depart from the hotel at 8:00 pm for a 10:30 pm flight to Frei Station, King George Island.

The mood immediately shifted, the hushed whispers and glum faces of my fellow travelers that had plagued us for nearly two days, were now morphing into cheers, excited babbling and smiles across the board.

The anticipation and negative thoughts that had been spiraling in my head for the last two days dissipated. I was full of excitement and energy, I could’ve done cartwheels through the lobby.

We were really going to Antarctica!