Story & Photos by: Lee Abbamonte, youngest American to visit every country.

Antarctica just sounds like the end of the world. It’s a place that few actually ever see in person, and even fewer explore within it. Antarctica is a place that gets in your blood. The ice is captivating, it is mesmerizing and it will leave you breathless and wanting more. Antarctica is simply put, the most beautiful place on Earth and when you’ve been there, you feel like it’s a part of you. (It’s become a part of me since my first journey.)

Antarctica is not just the bottom of the world or the seventh continent. It is the world’s largest desert: a white desert of the most fascinating and isolated landscapes on Earth. To experience Antarctica first hand is to see the world in a way that you cannot see it anywhere else on the planet.

These days, Antarctica is relatively easy to reach if you have the time and the money. You can reach the ice by cruise/icebreaker from a number of Southern Hemisphere ports including Ushuaia, Argentina; Punta Arenas, Chile; Stanley, Falkland Islands; Hobart, Australia; and Christchurch, New Zealand. There is also the occasional research or passenger vessel that leaves from Cape Town, South Africa to see some of the more remote Antarctic islands.

These cruises are the simplest and cheapest way to see the ice. Some cruises and icebreakers actually let you set foot on the ice, generally the Palmer Peninsula but these landings are not guaranteed and you generally only have one chance to make the landing because of the cruise schedule and weather. However, for the most intrepid modern day explorers, you can also fly to the ice and explore within it.

Twice I’ve flown to the ice, spending about 4 weeks. Adapting to Antarctica’s harsh environment and meeting people who actually live on the ice is intense and eye-opening. It’s a tough thing to explain…you have to see it for yourself.

Antarctica also has mountains and valleys to climb and photograph, dramatic ice caves to trek through and explore and of course, emperor penguins! Being surrounded by colonies of thousands of the most beautiful, cutest and toughest animals alive is something I will never forget and have been fortunate to experience it twice. It is mind-blowing stuff!

To think what these penguins go through in the harshest environment on Earth is amazing. No species of life gives as much as emperor penguins do to survive and protect their family. Witnessing the bond between penguins and their chicks is beautiful.

Finally, the ultimate destination in the world: the South Pole, arguably the hardest place on the planet to get to because of sheer distance, climate and cost. Reaching the South Pole was the greatest moment of my travel life (and given all my travels, that says A LOT).

I can’t quite explain the feeling of standing at the bottom of the world where so many legendary explorers had tried to reach. A century ago there was the race to reach the South Pole with heroes like Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton attempting to reach it. Only Amundsen lived to tell the tale.

Fast forward to our modern times, only a few hundred non-scientists/government contractors have actually been to the South Pole. I am one of those few hundred, and I will always remain proud of that achievement.

I went to Antarctica multiple times. I made it to the South Pole. And all I want to do is go back to the ice, and guaranteed I will!