As tourists crowd Europe, you’d think you could escape to the South Pole, but Antarctica now gets more than 100,000 visitors each summer. Most travelers arrive on cruise ships and tromp all over the glaciers in big packs. Reportedly, popular landing sites, such as Neko Harbour and Whalers Bay, saw around 20,000 visitors alone last year.
Good luck seeing an Emperor penguin with that kind of crowd scene.
That’s where a luxury tour group saw an opportunity. They created White Desert, a group of 12-person polar camps set atop the ice. With its own private aircraft runway, the three camps only take 250 people per season. (You have to fly in; it’s not accessible by cruise ship.)
The futuristic-looking fiberglass ellipsoid “sky pods” are located in each camp, which has a communal hub house, dining room, lounge, and hot shower facilities. At this bespoke ‘camp,’ you can expect gourmet meals, saunas, and every luxury you can think of.
For excursions, they offer rock climbing and abseiling at nearby Nunatak mountains, cross-country ski trips, and expert-guided campouts in even more remote areas.
You can also take a visit to Atka Bay, home to one of the largest Emperor Penguin colonies on the planet, and — for an extra fee — expeditions to the rarely visited Geographic South Pole, which usually only sees scientists.
This all comes with a hefty price tag, naturally.
Rates for a week-long stay at Echo start from $71,500 per person, but part of the fee goes to the company’s White Desert Earth Foundation, which will ‘support investments in sustainable science and education.’
With all the amenities, it’s still the Antarctic scenery that is the star.
