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Polar Bear Primer: Eight Facts About the Arctic Wanderer

Polar bears are found throughout the Arctic region in 19 subpopulations, including Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Norway, and Russia. In these areas, polar bears favour the edges of pack ice where currents and wind interact. In these areas, the continuous melting and refreezing pattern creates ice patches and leads, which are open spaces in the sea between sea ice.

16 Conversation-Starting Svalbard Facts

It might seem odd that an icy, snowy, bear-packed cluster of islands at the edge of the world could be such a hotspot (so to speak) of outdoor tourism. But once you visit Svalbard, this apparent oddity starts to make a lot more sense.

10 Tried-and-True Bird Photography Tips

It’s easy to understand our fascination with birds: They’re beautiful, graceful (usually), and most of them have the power of flight. But how do you capture that beauty, grace, and freedom in your photographs? Some will tell you it’s the lens, some the camera, and other bird photographers will say that some species are just naturally photogenic. Whatever the case, here are 10 tips that can only enhance bird photography.

10 Weather-Fueled Facts about Antarctica

Most of us have at least a vague notion of what makes the North and South Poles so brutally, bone-chillingly cold: They receive less sunlight than the rest of the planet, what sunlight they do receive arrives at an angle, and they’re usually buried under endless mounds of ice and snow. This holds especially true for the South Pole and its centerpiece, Antarctica. Fewer people know, however, what drives Antarctic weather, or what results from it. Here are ten weather-related facts about the most southern continent that will put your polar meteorology ahead of the curve.

Taking Chances: a New Lesson from the Arctic

Some days just don’t get off to a good start. Today was one of them. Our vessel, m/v Plancius, had spent the night sailing toward Phippsøya, one of the famous Seven Islands forming the northernmost segment of the Svalbard archipelago. The recent weather had been great, spectacular even, as though purposefully showcasing some of the highlights of our voyage: the vibrantly colored houses of Ny Ålesund, the silhouetted blue whale in Woodfjord, and our hauntingly lit Hinlopen Straight passage through shards of crackling sea ice. Maybe all this good luck had set our expectations a little too high. Maybe that’s why were so disappointed when the luck ran out.

10 Bountiful Blue Whale Facts

We could write a book filled with fun and fascinating facts about blue whales, but here we will select the 10 most interesting blue whale facts in our opinion.

A Guide’s Guide: Interview with Michael Ginzburg

For adventure lovers, a common reaction to meeting polar expedition guides is that they have the coolest job on the planet.

Puffins: Clown Birds of the Atlantic

Puffins belong to a family of 22 species of seabirds called Auks, pigeon-sized birds that live on a diet of small fish and crustaceans. Puffins catch their prey by swimming underwater and chasing it down. There are four species of puffins. One species, the Atlantic puffin, is around 18-20 cm (7-7.8 inches) in height and weighs between 350-600 grams (.8-1.3 pounds). It is found across a wide geographic area, all the way from France to the Gulf of Maine.

17 Reasons to Cruise the Falklands

You’ve seen the colossal penguin colonies of South Georgia. You’ve sailed among the plunging seals of the Antarctic Peninsula. You’ve watched whales in the Weddell Sea beside a backdrop of titanic tabular icebergs. But if you haven’t visited the Falkland Islands, you’re missing one of the touristic wonders of the far Southern Hemisphere. Here are 17 irrefutable reasons to add some of this sub-Antarctic archipelago’s 778 distinctive islands to your travel calendar.

10 Popular Bird Watching Binoculars

Binoculars are so common a companion of outdoor enthusiasts that many pack them with hardly a second thought. They’re tossed into a backpack alongside bug spray, sunblock, and waterproof matches with not half the care afforded the typical cell phone. But to some outdoors groups, binoculars serve a highly specific and eminently indispensable purpose. And there is perhaps no group for whom this rings more true than for bird watchers. If you count yourself among this exceptionally technical clan of hobbyists, here are 10 birding binoculars you’ll want to know more about – even if you know about them already.

10 Illuminating Facts about the Northern Lights

According to Roman mythology, Aurora was the goddess of the dawn. The word “borealis,” however, is Greek for “wind.” The combined phrase “aurora borealis” therefore means “dawn wind,” known in English as the northern lights. This phenomenon has fascinated people for thousands of years, a fascination that clearly continues today: The northern lights are one of the major attractions of the Arctic, and indeed there are a number of northern lights cruises in the Arctic specifically devoted to viewing this magical lightshow

Oceanwide Finalist in Adventure in Motion Film Contest

The new corporate commercial for Oceanwide Expeditions, “Walk into the Waking Dream,” has just been nominated as a finalist in the Adventure in Motion short film competition.

Penguins, Albatrosses, Petrels: The Winged Wildlife of South Georgia

South Georgia’s location south of the Antarctic Convergence gives the island more of an Antarctic climate than other terrain of the same latitude.

Inside the Svalbard Global Seed Vault

Literature, cinema, even video games have given us no small supply of global disaster scenarios. These often come in the form of annihilating wars, pulverizing natural catastrophes, or sweeping pandemics that leave bands of ragged survivors scrambling for boxed potatoes and bullets amid hordes of cannibalistic zombies.

Behind the Scenes with Plancius Hotel Manager Sebastian Duma

A pleasant June evening, mild and warm – for the Arctic. Outside the panoramic windows of the m/v Plancius observation lounge, peaks and glaciers and rolling white snowscapes glide past unhurried. Conversation has softened to a post-dinner hum, and the bar is almost empty except for the breathless comings and goings of Charlotte the bartender restocking cocktail glasses.

A Bug’s Life in Svalbard

When you think about Svalbard wildlife, you might imagine reindeer, Arctic foxes, polar bears – the primary animal attractions that draw passengers to an Arctic cruise. But in fact the Svalbard archipelago is a thriving location for over 1,000 species of terrestrial and freshwater invertebrates: animals that lack backbones. Despite this richness of life, however, these invertebrates are only found in the Isfjord and Kongsfjord areas of these wonderfully diverse islands.

Polar Cruises: The Ultimate Icebreakers

Travel is one of life’s great eye openers. It brings you into contact with new people and perspectives, challenges old assumptions you haven’t held to the light in years, and invites you to make unexpected discoveries about the world around you – and most of all, about yourself. Added to which, you get to visit places you never knew you loved until you saw them.

5 Life Lessons You'll Learn in Antarctica

Whether you’re climbing mountains, buying lunch in a foreign city, or taking an Antarctic cruise, you’re not only learning more about the world and the people in it, you’re learning about yourself.

A Thankful Tradition: Interview with Captain Nazarov

It takes a village to run a polar cruise. The guides show us the terrain, the serving staff keeps us fed, and the passengers make sure the bartender has never a lonely moment. Yet among all this fine-tuned circuitry, the captain plays the most important part.

10 Traits of Post-Ice-Age Greenland

During the last ice age, most plants and animals vanished from Greenland as a thick sheath of ice coated the landscape. Once this ice started to retreat around 12,500 years ago, it left boulders and raw mineral earth exposed for plants and animals to colonise. This colonisation, however, did not occur overnight: Due to Greenland’s geographic isolation and difficult topography, it was a slow, slow process.

15 Fantastic Photos of Antarctica

It's often said that it is impossible to take a bad photo in Antarctica. We'll say it again.

Remembrance of Expeditions Past

Today I sit in the sun, thinking back on the years I spent with my Oceanwide family since my retirement in 1997. My first trips were on a little Russian vessel, Grigoriy Mikheev, which carried only 44 passengers – but a nice size for me to get to know everyone on board.