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The Ultimate Traveler’s Guide to the Arctic and Antarctica
Sunrises or sunsets, coffee or tea, Wonder Woman or Superman. The world contains a virtually limitless supply of things to compare, contrast, juxtapose, differentiate. But few things so perfectly express the polarities of our planet as its literal magnetic poles – or more generally, the Arctic (north) or Antarctica (south).
Oceanwide Expeditions covers the polar corner at ITB Berlin
Last week Oceanwide staff attended ITB Berlin, the world’s largest travel trade show, meeting old friends and new in a weeklong spree of tour operators, travel agents, and all other manner of professionals in the wide world of commercial travel.
Ada Blackjack: Forgotten Queen of Arctic Expeditions
The incredible real-life story of the overlooked Iñupiat woman who became the only survivor of a fateful Arctic expedition.”
A Brief History of Arctic & Antarctic Cruises
These days you can book a few tickets, take a few flights, and embark on an expedition cruise to areas that just over a century ago represented the outer limits of earthly exploration.
Arctic Ales, Polar Pilsners: Interview with the Svalbard Brewery
Something just seems right about the existence of the Svalbard Brewery. After all, there certainly should be a brewery on the far-flung Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. And it certainly should be in Longyearbyen, the largest settlement of the chain’s largest island.
The Ins, Outs, and Ups of Polar Mountaineering & Ski Mountaineering
To shed some light on these ultimate outings, here’s a rough guide to polar mountaineering and ski mountaineering, telling you what the activities entail, where you can do them, and why they’re the best way to put some elevation in your polar vacation.
Selling Spectacular: Interview with Maria del Pilar Fernández
We regularly interview our expedition guides and crew, gushing about all the fantastic locations these lucky souls get to call their office. But what about the Oceanwide staff whose office is, well, an office?
Arctic and a Coffee: Interview with a Polar Sailing Captain
Some people travel to the Arctic for the polar bears and seabirds, others for all those ice-spackled bays and peaks dusted with snow no hand will ever touch.
Arctic expedition vs Antarctic expedition: how to choose?
How to choose between an Arctic and Antarctic expedition? At Oceanwide Expeditions, we’re experienced in both and have some insights to help you out!
Arctic Invaders: Interview with a Marine Ecotoxicologist
Despite all we read about the warming planet, the polar species struggling to keep up, and the hive of business interests unrepentantly trying to turn the world’s natural reserves into personal cash registers, there are a few people actively trying to make things better.
Clean Seas, Please: AECO, UNEP, and the Clean Seas Campaign
In Robert Frost’s famous prophesying poem, Fire and Ice, the New England poet speculates as to how the world will end. Will it be by fire or by ice?
Experience the Arctic Polar Night
As of late November, the polar night began darkening the skies of Northern Norway. Right now there is no sunrise in Tromsø.
Kayaking in Antarctica and the Arctic
Though our focus is always providing our passengers maximum possible polar shore time, sometimes off-shore time is just as important. For this, there’s no better adventure than polar kayaking.
Meat, Mate, Move: a Polar Bear Story
Silent as the wind through your fur, you creep over the ice to the small, dark hole. At the bottom, well within reach of your tensing paws, a black circle of lapping water stares back at you like the pupil of some enormous, unreadable eye.
AECO, IAATO & OEX: Polar Travel Partnerships
Nature-based travel asks its share of responsibilities to the planet, and travel in ecologically vulnerable areas even more so. Thankfully, the polar regions have two vital and widely respected organizations in their corner: AECO and IAATO.
A Moveable Feast: Interview with a Polar Cruise Chef
Polar cruises are luxurious, but they aren’t luxury cruises. The beds are wonderfully comfortable, but nobody expects goose-down pillows. The bar is appropriately well stocked, but no bottles of triple-cask Macallan 21 glow atop the shelves. The food is delicious, ample, and hearty, but…
Arctic Mythology: Inuit, Saami, and the Ancient Greeks
The Arctic locations we visit aren’t merely made up of phenomenal landscapes, exotic wildlife, and more adventure than a Hardy Boys novel. They’re also interwoven with ancient cultures, all of which have their own particular and fascinating cosmologies.
Two for the Snow: Polar Cruises for Couples
You know the old saying, “Cold hands, warm heart.” We’re not doctors or anything, but in our opinion that bodes well for couples who visit the polar regions.
Keep It Green: Our Commitment to Sustainable Polar Travel
It doesn’t make much sense for polar travel if every time we visit the Arctic and Antarctica we leave them worse than we found them. And that’s just considering things from a purely human perspective, which we don’t.
Why a Polar Diving Cruise Should be Your Next Great Decision
Not so very long ago, all you had to do to qualify as a thrill-seeker was hop a ship to the polar regions and make it back with all your fingers – or your life, if you weren’t picky.
Six Must-See Svalbard Sites
It’s home to humanity’s last-ditch supply of crop seeds, the world’s northernmost settlement over 1,000 people, and is one of the best places on the planet to spot a polar bear.
Where the Polar Bears Roam
Going to the Arctic without clapping eyes on a real-life polar bear might reasonably be compared to visiting Africa without seeing a giraffe or a zebra or, most analogously, a lion. Not that that’s unusual. Polar bears, after all, aren’t overabundant no matter where you go. And if you see one, you should thank your lucky stars (and watchful expedition guides) that you did. Still, if you wrap up an Arctic cruise without spotting one polar bear, you can certainly count on spotting your share of disappointed faces when you get back – your own among them.
