Antarctica, Part 4: An Audio Slideshow


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Last Updated on November 2, 2017 by Audrey Scott

Antarctica, uninhabitable in the truest sense of the word. No human can survive it naturally. So what is it that draws us in, makes us want to visit, explore, push the boundaries, and place it on the bucket list?

We've spent hours sharing highlights of our Antarctica experience with family, friends and fellow travelers. The result: we get excited, they get excited. And rightfully so — Antarctica is a special place and our experience there was truly memorable in so many dimensions.

Inspired by all of these conversations ourselves, we decided to dabble in a different medium, the audio slideshow, to relate our Antarctica experience in a different way.

Turn your volume on/up. Full screen = 4-arrows icon at right; press captions for photo captions.

Antarctica Highlights

Detaille Island

Take a look at the photo from Detaille Island, just south of the Antarctic Circle, for a clue. Take a good, long look at the glaciers — their color, how they seem to glow from within. For a place so devoid of light much of the year, that light should seem to emanate from within frozen blocks of ice is remarkable.

Detaille island antarctica
A Crabeater seal takes a long nap on top of an iceberg at Detaille Island in Antarctica.

While we were giddy frolicking with penguins on our trip, but it's that otherworldliness of raw openscape where beauty meets brutality that always brings us back.

Just a few meters from where where we took this photo lies an abandoned British Antarctic Survey (BAS) research center — a sort of three-dimensional snapshot to man's fallibility. The story goes that the center's inhabitants left in a hurry — food still in the cupboards, sweaters still draped over chairs — when faced with a decision to either meet a ship beyond a glacier just a few kilometers away or to stay put for another season with existing supplies. The scientists decided to leave — to flee, really — in 1959 and the place looks today just as they left it then. It's frozen in time, in a way, like Antartica itself.

We're still prone to shivers, less because of Antarctic temperatures than Antarctic temperament, when we recall our journey south of the Antarctic Circle.

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G Adventures tours to Antarctica

The Antarctica tour we took with G Adventures was paid for by us and went south of the Antarctic Circle. We highlight this feature as most tours to Antarctica do not go this far south. If you plan to book this or another tour with G Adventures, please consider starting the process by clicking on the ad to the left. The price stays the same to you and we earn a small commission. Thank you!

About Daniel Noll
Travel and life evangelist. Writer, speaker, storyteller and consultant. Connecting people to experiences that will change their lives. Originally from the U.S. Daniel has lived abroad since 2001 and most recently has been on the road since 2006. When he's not writing for the blog you can keep up with his adventures on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. And you can learn more about him on the About Page and on LinkedIn.

27 thoughts on “Antarctica, Part 4: An Audio Slideshow”

  1. Not only did you guys capture some fantastic images, but you’ve really set the bar for presenting them. This was beautiful, and you incorporated a ton of really great info. Well done!

    Reply
  2. LOVED IT!!! Antartica is on my must do list and I have traveled with GAP a lot. Glad to be a part of your journey! Thank you for continuously sharing your life with us and getting us excited about travel and educating us at the same time on often very important events and/or matters. Happy traveling!

    Reply
  3. Great job. What program(s) did you use to make this audio slide-show? I am a high school teacher in the US and would like to incorporate this into my curriculum. Thanks!

    Reply
  4. Oh I loved it! It’s fun to be led through the photos by you both and makes me feel even more like I am able to go on a piece of this journey with you – I learned a lot but you guys were fun to listen to, so it was great! 🙂

    Reply
  5. Hey everyone! Glad you enjoyed this and thanks for the positive feedback on our first audio slideshow! So, we should try and incorporate more audio slideshows into our regular posts?

    @Ross: We plan to start incorporating more video clips as well into our posts. Anything else you’d like to see more of here? We appreciate feedback from our readers!

    @Leigh: Yes, VERY glad we made the decision to go to Antarctica. We hope our readers haven’t gotten bored of it yet 🙂

    @Bret: We used Soundslides to make this audio slideshow. This software was recommended to me by the media organization I used to work for in Prague. I haven’t tried other software formats, but I found Soundslides very easy to use and would recommend it.

    Reply
  6. It was a lovely slide show. I never felt so excited watching it earlier on any other media.

    Soon I can think of planning one of my own.

    Thank you so much for all the information and updating this blog.

    Reply
  7. Wow. I loved your story and slideshow. I have booked to travel on the Antarctic Circle trip on the MS Expedition in February/March 2012. It all looks fantastic and now I’m feeling that nervous excitement even more. Thanks for your insights into what must be an amazing trip. Best wishes for future travels!

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  8. @Matthew: Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it. You will have a terrific time. We’ll look forward to hearing about your adventures aboard the MS Expedition when you return.

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  9. @Joe: Daniel here…actually Audrey and I are the ones who wrote this and were narrating the slideshow. Glad you enjoyed it. Antarctica: vast and fragile for certain.

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  10. Hello again! I posted number 19 above and returned from the trip three weeks ago. Now here in England, looking back it seems fantastic, barely credible. Like visiting another planet. I loved the MS Expedition too; everyone worked so hard to give us the best experience possible. We all became so spoilt in the dining room!

    I had a cabin next door to the Mud Room. The sea wasn’t as rough as your trip, although the waves washed over the porthole a few times.

    On one day during a lecture in the Discovery lounge they played a video taken last year from the bridge showing the ship in a huge sea in the Drake. I think it may have been from your trip.

    Roald Amundsen said ‘Antarctica is a fairytale’ and now I know first hand what he meant. Paradise Harbour, Danco Island, Half Moon Island – these are names that will always be with me. What a magical, enchanted place.

    Reply
  11. @Matthew: Thank you so much for taking the time to write back after your trip. Even better, it sounds like you had a terrific time. It is an amazing experience, isn’t it? We try to find the words to describe an Antarctica experience, but it’s difficult.

    The video from the bridge would have sent chills if we watched it.

    Antarctica, the fairytale. So glad you had a chance to experience it and that you shared your thoughts with us!

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  12. @Matthew: Wow, that is a cool statistic. We’re now members of an elite club, the Circle Club. Looks like we’re in good company!

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  13. I was told by one of the G Adventures expedition team onboard that they had checked all the tour stats from the different tour companies, along with records for all the scientific expeditions over the years, and they worked out that in the nearly 200 years since we first set foot on the continent only about 750,000 people have ever been to Antarctica. The number who have travelled down to the circle is certainly a lot less. It’s an exclusive club :o)

    Reply

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