We plan both poles as one team, and the question we hear most from guests who have done one is whether the other is worth it. The honest answer is that they are not two versions of the same trip. They differ in almost everything that matters: the wildlife, the light, the people, the sea, the cost of getting there from Australia and the way a day is spent. This is how we explain it across the desk.
In short
Antarctica is a continent of ice with no people, reached across the roughest sea on earth, in our summer. The Arctic is an ocean of ice ringed by inhabited land, reached by an airport, in our winter. One is about scale and silence. The other is about ice, bears and a thousand years of human history on the shore.
Wildlife: penguins and whales, or bears and walrus
Antarctica is the easier place to see wildlife and the harder place to see anything you have not seen in a documentary. Penguins by the hundred thousand, seals on every floe, humpbacks feeding in every bay in February: the animals have no land predators and little fear of people, and the IAATO rule of five metres is often broken by the penguins themselves. The Arctic is the opposite. Its headline animal, the polar bear, is a predator that the law now keeps 300 metres from a ship in Svalbard, and every sighting is earned. Walrus, musk oxen, reindeer, Arctic fox, narwhal, beluga and bowhead whales are all Arctic only. Penguins do not exist there, and polar bears do not exist in the south.
Light: the midnight sun, or the aurora
Both poles have the midnight sun in their summer and both have the aurora in their dark months. The difference is when the ships sail. Antarctic voyages run from November to March, entirely inside the light, so the aurora australis is almost never seen from an expedition ship. Arctic voyages run from May to September, and September is dark enough for the northern lights while the programme is still running. If the aurora is the point, the north is the only answer. If twenty-hour days of ice and penguins are the point, the south.
People: none, or a thousand years of them
Antarctica belongs to no one and has no permanent residents, which is its magic: you land on beaches where the only history is a whaling station or a hut from 1911. The Arctic is home. Inuit communities in Greenland and Canada, Sámi in Norway, Icelanders, the 2,500 people of Longyearbyen; Norse ruins from the year 1000, Franklin’s graves, Basque whaling stations, Moravian missions, Cold War weather stations. A day in the Arctic can hold a glacier front in the morning and a drum dance in a village hall in the afternoon. The south never does.
The sea: the Drake, or none of it
Getting to Antarctica means two days each way across the Drake Passage, the roughest stretch of water on earth, unless you fly it from Punta Arenas. Most Arctic voyages have no open-water crossing at all: Svalbard, Disko Bay and the Northwest Passage are sailed inside fjords and sounds, and only the Iceland and Greenland routes cross the Denmark Strait for a night and a day. For guests who dread the sea, this decides it.
The ice: on the land, or in the water
Antarctic ice is the continent itself, an ice sheet up to four kilometres thick that calves tabular icebergs the size of cities. Arctic ice is mostly sea ice, frozen ocean a few metres thick that the ships push into, and the glacier icebergs of Greenland. The Antarctic Peninsula gives you scale: walls of ice and mountains to 2,000 metres from the water. The Arctic gives you proximity: the hull in the floes, a bear on the ice beside the ship, the Pole itself under your boots.
Getting there from Australia
Antarctica is closer. Sydney to Buenos Aires or Santiago is 13 to 15 hours, Ushuaia a further three, and some East Antarctic voyages sail from Hobart. The Arctic is 24 hours to Europe and a charter north the next day, so the journey is longer and the jet lag worse, but there is no sea crossing at the end of it and the gateway cities, Oslo, Paris, Reykjavík, are places to spend two days rather than endure.
Cost
Like for like, the Arctic is slightly cheaper per night for a first voyage, because Svalbard can be done in seven nights from a town with an airport, while the Peninsula needs ten to twelve with the Drake. At the top end the Arctic is dearer: the North Pole is the most expensive expedition voyage in the world. Flights from Australia cost more to the north. The full numbers are in what an Arctic cruise really costs.
The rules
Antarctica is governed by the Antarctic Treaty and the operators’ own association, IAATO: no more than 100 people ashore at once, five metres from wildlife, ships over 500 passengers may not land at all. The Arctic is seven jurisdictions with seven sets of rules. Svalbard’s, since 2025, are the strictest: 43 landing sites, no ship over 200 passengers in the reserves, 300 metres from a bear. Greenland and Canada are governed by their national parks and the Inuit communities whose land it is. We know all of them, and they change what we recommend.
Late light on the mountains of Kangerlussuaq Fjord, the long approach to the start or end of a West Greenland voyage. Photographed on a Swan Hellenic SH Vega voyage. © Swan Hellenic
Which first?
Antarctica, for most guests, because it is the one that is only ever about the place, and because the Peninsula in January is the surest wildlife voyage on earth. The Arctic second, because it rewards knowing what you are looking at: the history, the villages, the ice from below rather than above. The guests who go north first are usually the ones who want the aurora, who dread the Drake, or who want to stand at the Pole. We help with both, from the same team: Antarctica Cruise for the south, this site for the north.
Worth knowing
Pole to pole in one year is possible: Antarctica in January, the Arctic in July. We have planned it for guests more than once, and the second voyage is simpler with us because the paperwork, the insurance and your preferences are already on file.
Questions we are asked
Is the Arctic colder than Antarctica?
No. Arctic summer days sit between zero and 10 degrees, Antarctic Peninsula days between minus 2 and 5. The Arctic wind off the sea ice can feel colder, and the Pole sits around zero.
Can we see penguins in the Arctic, or polar bears in Antarctica?
No, and no. Penguins live only in the southern hemisphere, polar bears only in the north. Any brochure that puts them together is selling two voyages.
Which has the better photography?
Antarctica for scale and for animals that come to you. The Arctic for light, colour and people. Serious photographers tend to do both, with a long lens in the north and a wide one in the south.
Which is better for a first expedition cruise?
Antarctica if you want the certainty of wildlife and do not mind the Drake. Svalbard in June if you want a week, an airport and the chance of a bear. We tell you which, honestly, once we know how you travel.
Tell us which pole you have done, or neither, and we plan the next one. See the seven Arctic destinations or start with when to go.
