Category: Epic Adventures

No figure towers over the history of polar exploration than that of Sir Ernest Shackleton. On polar expedition cruises, it’s a rare voyage there that doesn’t include a lecture about Shackleton’s life and the epic survival story of his Endurance expedition. It’s a story in which South Georgia plays a central role, and many visitors […]

Heralded as the ‘Galapagos of the Southern Ocean’, the stunning island of South Georgia is packed with both history and wildlife. For anyone who has ever watched a David Attenborough series on heaving king penguin colonies or battling elephant seals, it is likely to have been filmed on this remote island. My first trip to […]

If you’ve never visited Antarctica or experienced a Polar expedition cruise before, you may be wondering how you would spend your time there. Antarctica is totally uninhabited, excluding a few scientific bases, so the entirety of your time off the ship is spent outdoors in a vast white wonderland, with plenty of adventure activities on […]

Antarctica’s white wilderness has an irresistible magnetism for adventurous souls the world over. Around 40,000 travellers make the journey to the 7th continent each year in search of life-affirming and perspective-changing experiences, and they don’t return disappointed, but when is the best time to go? There are a host of reasons to voyage to one […]

Perhaps you’ve experienced an eclipse in your lifetime; the anticipation, squinting upwards at a surreal sight, the world changing around you in real-time. If you’ve never witnessed one and you have an innate curiosity to do so, you’re not alone. Scientists have studied eclipses across the world for hundreds of years, and many outside of […]

If you’ve never travelled to Antarctica you might be wondering what awaits you. It may seem like a land locked in permanent winter, but with 1,860 miles between the South Pole and the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, it’s no surprise that there’s dramatic weather variation across the continent. When it comes to planning […]

In 2013 Seb Coulthard took a small wooden boat into an unforgiving sea, and along with five other spirited adventurers, attempted to follow in the footsteps of the legendary polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. Shackleton’s voyage was remarkable, a real test of endurance. Seb’s adventure was the first re-enactment, using traditional equipment, of part of Shackleton’s […]

Erik Geerts contacted Swoop to help him arrange an Antarctic adventure for him and his daughter, Natascha. Our Antarctica expert, Alex set about tailor making a once-in-a-lifetime trip for them both. Little did Alex or Erik know that a Chilean strike at Santiago Airport on the day that they were due to travel could threaten […]