Want to be the first to see the sunrise on New Year's Day 2010? Then get yourself booked onto a flight on the Qantas A380, which will spend New Year's Eve 2009 flying over Antarctica.

A gang called Antarctic Sightseeing Flights are running the trip, which starts in Sydney and will pick up more passengers in Melbourne before heading down in the direction of the South Pole. You'll spend almost 12 hours on board but it's no ordinary flight—they'll have a jazz band playing, a bit of a party atmosphere, and a strict seat rotation policy so that everybody gets their share of the best views.]]> amandak 2009-09-11T08:58:52-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/8/28/144013/899

If you're not quite ready for your summer vacation to end and you've got $60,000 burning a hole in your pocket, the professional travel planners at ekoVenture are ready to take you on a two-month adventure across Antarctica. The trip has a difficulty level of "strenuous" and the comfort level is rated as "bare bones," or, in other words: awesome.

If that last part doesn't give you an adequate sense of what you're in for, the trip overview begins with the following: "this unique expedition has the goal of arriving to the south pole unsupported, which means without any help or food caches from its beginning to its completion." On one hand, arriving at the south pole sounds mind-blowingly incredible. On the other hand, aren't "food caches" traditionally helpful things? Why would anyone want to give up on something with a name like "food caches"?]]> Omri 2009-08-28T16:04:42-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/7/7/133318/7076

Potential alternative titles: "Become Antarctica's Ben Southall," "A colder chance to be Ben Southall," or - more simply - "We hate Ben Southall." Southall, you'll recall, was the winner of Tourism Queensland's Best Job In The World Contest. Contestants had to submit videos explaining why they should be allowed to house-sit the Great Barrier Reef and blog about it for six months. People voted on their favorite applications, the tourism board chose one, and that was that.

Having won, Southall has recently taken to posting pictures of himself cavorting with dolphins and hanging out in his luxury villa. See? Hate.

In addition to unending enmity, the competition also generated about $200 million in global publicity value for Tourism Queensland. So naturally similar promotions are springing up. The most recent is Quark Expeditions' Blog Your Way To Antarctica contest.]]> Omri 2009-07-07T17:07:07-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/1/29/171255/288 Matt Chesterton has returned to Jaunted with tales of his latest trip cruising around Antarctica. Every day this week, he'll be enlightening us on this luxury ice capades adventure. Enjoy.

"My God, this is an awful place!"

That was Robert Falcon Scott's final verdict on Antarctica, as recorded in his diary. You can hardly blame Scott for allowing his quintessentially stiff Edwardian upper lip to quiver for a moment. He was about to freeze to death, a state of affairs which in his view -- to paraphrase another of his journal entries -- threatened to put a bummer on the entire trip.

We on the Antarctic Dream had fewer complaints. At no point did we have to choose between starving to death or spit-roasting one of our huskies. We ate well, drank well and could watch up to four movies a day. True, we ran out of beer. That shook us. But only the Germans considered it a fate worse than death by hypothermia.

Nothing awful, then. But one place we visited was eerie, if not downright sinister -- such stuff, to adapt Shakespeare, as nightmares are made on. This was Deception Island in the South Shetlands. ]]> MattyC 2009-01-30T11:55:57-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/1/28/145232/365 Matt Chesterton has returned to Jaunted with tales of his latest trip cruising around Antarctica. Every day this week, he'll be enlightening us on this luxury ice capades adventure. Enjoy.

It was the biggest piece of ice I'd ever seen in my life. A monstrous, sparkling slab of frozen bling. And to think I could only see one fifth of it! It filled me with awe -- and I'm not easily filled with anything.

I wanted to reach out and touch it. But of course I couldn’t. The bar was too wide, and Hugo the barman was keeping an eagle eye on his prize.

That's right: It was half-price whisky night on the Antarctic Dream. And each large--and I mean large, Hugo had the kind of quivery right hand you really appreciate in a barman--Scotch would be poured over a carved chunk of glacial ice, recently hauled aboard by several burly crew members.

Bacchanalian? Hardly. Poor old Bacchus never got out of the Med as far as we know. He had to settle for warm liquor. ]]> MattyC 2009-01-29T13:55:57-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/1/27/161528/696 Matt Chesterton has returned to Jaunted with tales of his latest trip cruising around Antarctica. Every day this week, he'll be enlightening us on this luxury ice capades adventure. Enjoy.

Some people will travel thousands of miles in search of ‘fresh air’, by which they mean air that is entirely odorless. This makes no sense to me. I like the way the world smells; it keeps me grounded.

I particularly like the stench of the city. My neighborhood of Buenos Aires discharges a pungent mélange of diesel fumes, deep-fried churros, grilled sausages, burning tobacco, cheap perfume, tilo, stray dogs, and whatever it is that comes out of a 1970s automobile.

Antarctica, I was led to believe, was pristine, sterile and untainted. It would be like swimming in Evian. Happily, this is not the case. On our first excursion on the ice continent, my olfactory nerves were given the shock and awe treatment. The sea smells. The ice smells. Elephant seals – who seem to all intents and purposes to be coprophiles – really smell. And the whiff of penguin guano, which is to cow shit what cow shit is to Chanel, will stay with me forever. (As one of my shipmates, Frank, from Arizona, wisely observed, quoting Frank Zappa: "Don't eat the yellow snow.")

]]> MattyC 2009-01-28T11:29:25-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/1/26/152850/104 Matt Chesterton has returned to Jaunted with tales of his latest trip cruising around Antarctica. Every day this week, he'll be enlightening us on this luxury ice capades adventure. Enjoy.

Rough seas are a bit like Ben Stiller movies; with the right drugs they become endurable, and even enjoyable. And just as you need the right strategy to get through the first 45 minutes of a Stiller (after that, you’re in the home straight), voyagers to Antarctica need to plan for the Drake Passage, the aquatic roller coaster on which you’ll spend your first two days -- and perhaps more if the wind blows -- en route to the ice continent.

The wind sure blew for us. Ignacio, our unflappable expedition leader, assured us – with what seemed like unwarranted glee – that we got the ‘Drake shake’.

Let me try to illustrate this. Imagine you’re in Mexico City. Now imagine you’ve downed 15 shots of mezcal in quick succession, each one accompanied by a taco – with all the sauces. Then, somehow, you’re off to the Six Flags theme park, where someone puts you on the Huracán, but, for some reason, neglects to strap you in. Five minutes into the ride, a voice comes over the tannoy: ‘Damas y caballeros, owing to a mechanical glitch, this ride will be continuing for another 48 hours. Pulque will be served at 7.’ ]]> MattyC 2009-01-27T12:33:07-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/