“One does not simply go to Antarctica. One dreams of going to Antarctica.” Anonymous Traveller
Sensor: Canon 6D
Location: Mikkelsen Harbor, Antarctica 
To be honest, I did not have this dream until fairly recently. It was a slow realization and ultimate fruition of strategic, tactical, and contingency travel planning that made this possible. My extended family had originally decided over a year ago to meet my sister and her boyfriend in Argentina near the end of their yearlong voyage across Latin America. But nearing closer to solidifying dates and plans, my parents and brother’s plans started to diverge. And my wife and I found much more leeway in organizing our own plans.
Thoughts of going to the Bolivian Salt Flats, Machu Picchu, and Patagonia flooded my mind and how to accomplish it. The trip would need to be several weeks long, at least 3 or 4 weeks. But even with this time frame, it would be tough to complete it all in this time span. And meeting up with my sister would still prove difficult.
But what really had me concerned was all the driving and hiking that we would need to do if going to any of these places. I’m not the roughing it kind of person, but I am open to it. My wife however not so much… Asking her to do 4 weeks of this would be unfair to well … ME! The remoteness of all these location and the hours of driving over remote roads would mean I would take the brunt of all the complaining.
At the same time, parallel to strategizing of keeping my wife happy and myself sane, I also had the realization that if I was thinking about the far reaches of Patagonia, what was stopping me from going a bit further? A few months before, I was going through a friend’s pictures online, and one particular photo had me really amazed. A completely alien scene of the Lemaire Channel covered in brash ice. The picture of all the ice sparked a flame of thought of travelling to Antarctica that did not exist before. I soon found myself pouring over all the information I could find of this place.
Sensor: Sony A7R
Location: Ushuaia, Argentina
The pieces of this puzzle came together when I figured out that we would be traveling by boat, hence no driving, and that we would be traveling with about 100 other people and hence any complaining of the cold and potential long hikes would be assuaged by the other unsuspecting passengers.
Hence my dream of Antarctica began at this point and I began assembling the itinerary that would get me there. The next few weeks of this blog will cover the various aspects of the 5th largest continent. I hope you enjoy the posts.
shakyphoto 