Pole to pole
Two ends of the earth
Antarctica in our summer, the Arctic in our winter, planned by one team who have sailed both.
The south
Antarctica, November to March
A continent that belongs to no one, held in trust by treaty since 1959 and reached across the Drake Passage in the southern summer. Penguin colonies counted in the hundreds of thousands, humpbacks feeding in every bay by February, tabular icebergs calved from ice shelves and a silence that has no equal. Ice sits on the land here, more than four kilometres thick at its heart, and the sea is where you travel, not where you stand. The surest wildlife voyage on earth, and the one most guests take first. We plan it as Antarctica Cruise: the same team, the same standards, and the same people who have sailed it.
The Antarctic destinations
The north
The Arctic, May to September
Eight nations, four million people and the oldest sea routes on earth. The Arctic is an ocean ringed by land, and its summer is a season of sea ice: the ship pushes through it, the bears hunt along its edge and the walrus haul out on what is left of it. There are villages here, Inuit and Norse and Sami, and a thousand years of their history on the shore. The light runs for twenty-four hours in June and July, then the first dark returns in late August and the aurora with it. Less certain than the south, and for many guests more moving for exactly that reason.
The Arctic destinationsSide by side
The same cold, solved two different ways
Eight things that are only true at one end of the earth. Choose a theme, and see both poles at once.
Read the full comparison
Wildlife: it comes to you in the south, you go to it in the north
In Antarctica the animals have no land predator and no fear of a person who stands still. Penguin colonies of tens of thousands, seals on the floes, humpbacks in every bay in February. The rule is that you keep five metres, not them. In the Arctic every animal has been hunted for ten thousand years and behaves accordingly: a bear watched from the ship or a Zodiac at three hundred metres, a walrus haul-out from the water, musk oxen on a hillside. Certainty in the south, rarity in the north, and the second is the one guests talk about for longer.
Wildlife: it comes to you in the south, you go to it in the north
In Antarctica the animals have no land predator and no fear of a person who stands still. Penguin colonies of tens of thousands, seals on the floes, humpbacks in every bay in February. The rule is that you keep five metres, not them. In the Arctic every animal has been hunted for ten thousand years and behaves accordingly: a bear watched from the ship or a Zodiac at three hundred metres, a walrus haul-out from the water, musk oxen on a hillside. Certainty in the south, rarity in the north, and the second is the one guests talk about for longer.
One year, two poles
How the calendar works
The two seasons never overlap. One follows the other around the calendar, which is why pole to pole in a single year is not only possible but natural.
Fresh snow to the shoreline, penguins on eggs, the Peninsula at its whitest. South Georgia voyages from Ushuaia begin. The quietest fares of the southern season.
Three ways to do both
The same year, or the same decade
There is no single right way to collect the poles. These are the three we plan most often.
Antarctica in January, home for autumn, the Arctic in July. Two voyages, one planning conversation, and the second packing list already written. Most of our pole-to-pole guests do it this way.
Following the summer
The ships that sail both poles
Every ship we recommend for the Arctic spends the southern summer in Antarctica. Choose one for the north and you have already met your ship for the south.
All Arctic ships
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Planned as one
Why both, with one team
When the same person plans both voyages, the second is simpler than the first. Your cabin, your deck, your table and the small things are already known, and nothing is asked twice. The first voyage becomes the brief for the second: a guest who loved the Weddell Sea aboard Le Commandant Charcot is sent into the spring ice of Greenland, and a guest who found the Drake long is given the Arctic routes that never leave sheltered water.
The second voyage
What you only understand once you have done both
Guests who return from their second pole say the same thing: the first one made sense of the other. Antarctica teaches you what ice is, and how much of the planet is made of it. The Arctic teaches you what it is to live beside it, and what is being lost as it goes.
The south is a cathedral. The north is a conversation. One is about scale and silence and an absence of people. The other is about the bear that may or may not appear, the village that has been there a thousand years, the sea ice that closes behind the ship. Guests who have seen both rarely say which was better. They say the two belong together.
- Certainty in the south, rarity in the north
- Ice on the land, then ice on the water
- No people, then a thousand years of them
Who goes pole to pole
The guests who collect both ends of the earth
Not every traveller should. These are the ones for whom it makes sense, and one for whom it does not.
The returning guest, who came home from Antarctica already asking about the north.
The photographer, who wants the bear and the penguin in the same portfolio.
The traveller who wants people as well as wildlife, and found the south too quiet.
The aurora seeker, who knows the south in summer will never give them that.
The naturalist, who wants to see the same cold solved two completely different ways.
And the guest with one voyage in them, for whom we say Antarctica, and leave the north alone.
The north, by coast
The south, by coast
Where Antarctica Cruise would send you
The same people, the same standards, the other end of the earth. Each coast has its own page on Antarctica Cruise.
Ten to twelve nights from Ushuaia. Penguins, whales, the Lemaire Channel and the continent itself. The voyage most guests take first.
The PeninsulaGo deeper
The guides we would read before choosing
Three from each pole, written by the people who plan them. The honest versions, with odds and prices.
Every bear coast of the Arctic by month, the honest odds, and what a sighting looks like from a ship.
Read the bear guide
Questions
Pole to pole, your questions answered
The order, the year, the cost and the differences. If your question is not here, we are a call away.
Antarctica for most guests: the surest wildlife voyage on earth and the one that is only about the place. The Arctic second, because it rewards knowing what you are looking at. Guests who want the aurora, dread the Drake or want to stand at 90° North go north first, and we tell them so.
Yes, and it is the most natural way. Antarctica in December or January, the Arctic in July or August, with the Australian autumn and winter between them. The seasons never overlap, so there is no compromise on either.
Different, not lesser. Antarctica gives you certainty and numbers: colonies of tens of thousands, whales in every bay in February. The Arctic gives you rarity and scale: a single bear on the sea ice, a walrus haul-out, musk oxen on the tundra. Nothing is promised in the north, which is precisely why it stays with people.
In their seasons, neither is as cold as its reputation. The Antarctic Peninsula in January and Svalbard in July both sit close to freezing. The cold voyages are the Arctic spring sailings into the sea ice in April and May, and the Ross Sea in the far south. The same parka, layers and boots serve both.
No. The expedition parka and boots are supplied aboard on the ships we recommend, and everything underneath is the same at both ends of the earth. Guests who pack well for Antarctica are already packed for the Arctic. Our packing guide covers the few northern additions, such as a mosquito head net for the Greenland tundra in July.
Yes. Le Commandant Charcot, the three Ponant sisters, SH Diana, SH Vega, Ultramarine and the Aurora Expeditions fleet all follow the summer from Antarctica to the Arctic. Many of our guests choose their southern ship with the north already in mind, and we arrange the same cabin category where it exists.
Antarctica is reached westward across the Pacific through Santiago or Buenos Aires to Ushuaia: a long day. The Arctic is reached through Europe, to Oslo for Svalbard, Reykjavík or Copenhagen for Greenland, and Toronto for the Canadian Arctic: a longer one. We build the nights either side into both, and most pole-to-pole guests add a week somewhere on the way north.
Often, yes. We hold offers on many departures at both poles, and guests who plan both with us hear of them first. Beyond the fare, booking both with one team gives you early word on the departures that sell out first, one set of paperwork, one insurance conversation and a team that already knows how you like to travel.
Made to measure
Tell us your Arctic, we build the rest
Every guest sails differently. Tell us what you are hoping for, the ice, the wildlife, the light, who you are travelling with, and we match it to the right sailing, the right stateroom and the right year, with flights from Australia and our own offers included. One Arctic Cruise specialist stays with you from the first call until you are home.