Antarctica Travel Guide — Things to Do, Food & Hotels
polar continent
About Antarctica
About 15million years ago, the mountain chain connecting South America to Antarctica sank under the ocean, and a new continent was born. Cold sea currents now enclosed Antarctica completely and its climate became intensely cold. 18th century explorers probed the dangerous southern oceans only to encounter a vast barrier of ice: they could hardly tell what was islands, what was a larger land mass, and what was just ice. The first sure sightings of the mainland were in 1820, by Russian, British and American ships all at about the same time. Whaling and sealing vessels began to hunt in the seas here, and explorers mapped the coast. In 1897, a Belgian expedition overwintered in Antarctica and this was the start of the "Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration", culminating when Roald Amundsen and h
Antarctica Travel Guide Sections
Our comprehensive guide covers 13 sections including: