End of the world: No hotels or civilisation and sub-zero temperatures... but Antarctica is still the trip of a lifetime

• To get there, you must travel to Ushuaia, the world's southernmost city
• This is followed by two days sailing the famously stormy Drake Passage
• But those who make it there will be rewarded by other-worldy wonders

By Laura Chubb For Mailonline

Published: 03:37 EST, 25 July 2015 | Updated: 06:26 EST, 25 July 2015

To go on holiday to Antarctica, you have to really want to go on holiday to Antarctica. It does, after all, entail a journey to the end of the world.

First, you must travel to the world's southernmost city, Ushuaia, tucked at the very bottom of Argentina.

Then you are to brave two full days sailing the Drake Passage, a 1,046km crossing from the tip of South America to the Antarctic Peninsula, renowned as one of the world's stormiest.

Antarctica is home to pristine panoramas of people-less scenery so end-of-the-world epic they look like CGI

To get to Antarctica you have to brave two days on the Drake Passage. Pictured: Cape Horn, South America

And what awaits once you're finally able to touch a toe to frozen land? Five-star hotels proffering hot toddies and steam baths to stave off below-freezing temperatures?

No, there are no hotels on Antarctica. Instead, you will spend nine days on an ice-strengthened, Yugoslavia-era ship. (Refurbished a bit, mind.)

At this point, it would seem understandable that just 28,000 people every year visit the seventh continent – a tiny number, equivalent to only 0.35 per cent of the population of London.

True, when I decided to take a trip to the Great White South, I encountered lots of puzzled looks. What, everyone wondered, would I actually do there?

There are no hotels on Antarctica. Instead, you spend nine days on an ice-strengthened, Yugoslavia-era ship

Antarctica has one of the world's richest landscapes: The incredible Lemaire Channel, pictured

But for the few who visit, it's like being part of a secret club; an elite that has experienced a part of our planet wholly unlike anywhere else.

And, far from being a barren white wasteland, I actually find Antarctica to be one of the world's richest landscapes.

There are pristine panoramas of people-less scenery so end-of-the-world epic, you'd swear they're CGI; up-close encounters with penguins, killer whales and seals; geology that holds the secrets of the planet's past, and weather systems set to decide our future; and a fascinating human history of man pushed to his greatest extremes.

A trip to Antarctica gives you the rare opportunity for encounters with penguins, killer whales and seals

Just 28,000 people per year visit the continent – equivalent to only 0.35 per cent of the population of London

First landing

Things get off to a good start with an unprecedentedly placid Drake Passage crossing. Aboard our vessel, the Sea Adventurer, the crew has prepared for typical Drake conditions by stuffing sick bags behind the hand rails lining the corridors. 

New York Times journalist Russell Owen, who wrote extensively about Antarctic expeditions in the 1930s, called the Drake 'one vast, gale-swept wilderness of water'. 

But our ship rolls only gently, allowing me to spend time out on deck - gaping at vast landless views, albatrosses circling, the frigid waves churning in our wake. 

Sucking in the fresh, cold air, I can really feel the eerie-beautiful isolation of this most remote part of the globe.

Our very first morning at the Antarctic Peninsula instantly makes up for the 14,500km I've travelled to get here.

You can visit penguin colonies, see seals sunbathing on an ice floe, or spy a pod of killer whales swimming by

A highlight of the trip is a Zodiac cruise around scenic Cierva Cove, at the Peninsula's north-west

The first order of business is a Zodiac cruise around scenic Cierva Cove, at the Peninsula's north-west. (For the course of the trip, a fleet of these inflatable motorised boats takes the Sea Adventurer's 100 passengers out to explore land in manageable groups.)

The scene is straight out of a brochure: icebergs big and small litter the water, some streaked and mottled an impossibly pure minty blue. I've never seen anything quite like it - it's an almost extra-terrestrial hue.

The weather is perfect, with clear skies overhead (no jet trails down here) and blazing sunshine – it may be 0C, but this is the Antarctic summer.

Ships can't visit any other time of year owing to impenetrable pack ice; in winter, temperatures in the interior can hit -89C.

Just as our Zodiac stops to admire the scene, a huge iceberg calves right in front of us. They say icebergs 'calve' because from the hunk of ice that breaks off, a new iceberg is born. The crashing sound as the ice plunges into the water is like a huge tree falling.

That piece of luck sets the tone for the rest of the day. By the end of our first 24 hours, we've visited two penguin colonies, watched a pair of snoozy seals sunbathing on an ice floe, spied a pod of killer whales swimming by the ship, and seen two humpbacks tipping their tails and spurting water side by side.

Even though you can only explore the tip of the frozen continent, its untouched enormity still astounds

The wildlife is undoubtedly a highlight of any Antarctic expedition, and it's everywhere: Weddell seal, pictured

Meet the penguins

The wildlife is undoubtedly a highlight of any Antarctic expedition, and it's everywhere. From the deck of the Sea Adventurer, I see icebergs adrift with regiments of penguins lined up on top, hitching a ride; and still others porpoising (kind of like doing the butterfly stroke) closer to shore.

Our voyage enjoys a record five separate killer whale sightings; when the announcements come over the ship's Tannoy, you can hear every cabin door slamming as passengers pull on their coats and race outside to catch a glimpse.

On land, we see and smell penguins in their hundreds; pink streaks of digested krill stain the snow. They waddle clumsily along their self-trampled 'penguin highways', and I can't help laughing each time one falls flat on its face. (Which is often.)

Adult emperor penguins waddle clumsily along their self-trampled penguin highways

Immaculate snow-coated mountains, hulking glaciers and frosted sea ice surrounds you in Antarctica

But it's the scenery that really steals it for me. During our five days at the Peninsula, we can only explore the very tip of a frozen continent more than twice the size of Australia, and yet its untouched enormity still astounds. 

Immaculate snow-coated mountains, hulking glaciers and frosted sea ice surrounds us, our ship the only man-made object in sight. It's a monochrome landscape so unspoiled, so natural, it can't help but look unnatural to our eyes.

This, you think, is what the world looks like without people. Antarctica isn't just something you see - it's a primal landscape that you feel.

There are at least fifteen types of whale in Antarctica, including humpback whales and killer whales

Port Lockroy: In summer, a team of four volunteers mans this lonely outpost, isolated in its own harbour

The Human Element

We do, however, have more encounters with humans than you might expect. One day, we visit Port Lockroy, an old British Antarctic Survey research station preserved as a museum. For the summer months, a team of four volunteers mans this lonely outpost, isolated in its own harbour. (They certainly seem pleased to see us.)

The museum is a brilliant insight into the fascinating scientific curiosities of Antarctica and how much it can tell us about our planet, and a look at the lonesome lives of the nine scientists who lived here. 

Tins of food left from the 1950s still line kitchen shelves – I spot the faded labels of Marmite, Lyle's Golden Syrup and Cross & Blackwell breakfast roll. A recipe book lays open at a page on how to cook penguin. (Frowned upon these days, of course.) 

The old British Antarctic Survey research station is preserved as a museum

Inside the museum at Port Lockroy, which gives a brilliant insight into the scientific curiosities of Antarctica

In other rooms, pin-up girls are painted on walls, the work of the team's engineer – Liz Taylor, Jane Mansfield and Doris Day all pictured in varying states of semi-naked repose.

Another day, we make a stop at Vernadsky Research Base - formerly the British station Faraday, where the hole in the Ozone layer was discovered. 

The Ukrainians bought it from the Brits for a symbolic £1 in 1996. It's best feature, however, is left over from the British – a pub lounge built from wood that was meant for a pier. (Well, you have to keep spirits up somehow.) 

It's like stepping into a 1970s-style local, with old beer taps, bras hanging up behind the bar, a pool table and a dart board. Here, a ruddy-nosed Ukrainian happily sells us homemade vodka; I feel it loosening my legs a mere halfway down one shot.

A signpost at the Vernadsky Research base on the Antarctic Peninsula, points to far away places

The bar at Vernadsky Research Base, where the hole in the Ozone layer was discovered

Wild at heart

The history of human endeavour maps our trip, with so many of Antarctica's islands and inlets named after early explorers who battled to be here. Wrapped up in our parkers and thermals, and warmed with layer-upon-layer of socks and gloves, you can barely imagine their varied miseries. 

It's been 100 years since Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship, the Endurance, was crushed to pieces by Antarctic ice, forcing his men to camp out on floes for five months. Their survival seems impossible, but then in this most mysterious part of the world, you start to believe anything possible.

Case in point: in September, a rare colossal squid was caught a mile below Antarctica's Ross Sea, weighing in at 350kg – or the same as a hefty adult male brown bear. It was the length of a minibus. 

It's been 100 years since Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship, the Endurance, was crushed to pieces by Antarctic ice

Scientists pondered whether such creatures could explain the legend of the Kraken – the giant squid chronicled in medieval folk tales. 

Staring into Antarctica's icy waters (which turn inky black under a cloudy grey sky), and surrounded by an alien landscape that even now, man cannot master, I could easily believe such monsters might lurk many miles beneath.

Which, I suppose, sums up why visiting Antarctica is so important. It's a palpable reminder that we do not know, or own, everything. We are humbled here, in awe of the continent's untameable wildness. Oh, and there's the penguins, obviously. They really are very cute.

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