Best Time to Visit South Georgia Island
South Georgia is bursting with life throughout the cruise season, so choosing when to take your voyage will ultimately depend on what you want to experience on your trip.
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Which places might I visit on South Georgia?
- Meet the king penguins in the largest rookeries in the world, with hundreds of thousands of birds
- Pay tribute to explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton by toasting 'The Boss' at his grave in Grytviken
- Visit historical sites and learn about the island's dark past as the epicentre of Antarctic whaling
- Take to the zodiacs and explore and breathtaking scenery of glacier-clad mountains rising from the sea
- Itineraries are always subject to South Georgia's weather and other conditions. Visits to specific locations are never guaranteed.
Top landing sites in South Georgia
Best landing sites for penguins
King penguins at Fortuna Bay
For understandable reasons, seeing South Georgia's king penguins are at the very top of the list for most visitors.
The largest king penguin colony on the island (and possibly in the world) is at St Andrews Bay and is an extraordinary assault on the senses in every way. The beach here can sometimes make landings tricky however so visits are far from guaranteed. The two other largest colonies are those at Salisbury Plain and Gold Harbour.
Smaller king penguin colonies can be found at Fortuna Bay and Right Whale Bay and in many ways offer more relaxed and intimate viewing.
Other species of penguins are also available of course. Stromness Harbour and Godthul are good for gentoo penguins, and Elsehul for macaroni penguins. Cooper Bay is the only place on the island where you can see a chinstrap penguin colony – in fact it's the only spot where all four species of South Georgia's penguins are known to breed.
Best landing sites for seabirds
Wandering albatross nesting on Prion Island
Not all birds on South Georgia are penguins. Some of its most enchanting species will have followed your ship from either the Falkand Islands or the Antarctic Peninsula: South Georgia is a place for albatross lovers.
Top of many people's wish-list for a trip here is a visit to Prion Island, where you have the possibility of seeing wandering albatrosses on the nest. Access is restricted: smaller than usual numbers of tourists are allowed per visit, and they must stick strictly to the wooden boardwalk through the nesting area. Prion Island is completely closed to visitors between 20 November to 7 January inclusive.
The cliffs of Elsehul offer another treat for albatross fans. Grey-headed albatross and light-mantled albatross (for our money, the two most beautiful albatross species) nest here, and the skies are full of wheeling birds, as well as many other seabird species. Right Whale Bay is another good spot for a wide variety of nesting seabirds.
Best landing sites for history
Nature reclaiming the whaling station at Grytviken
While some landing sites in South Georgia overwhelm you with their wildlife, others bring the island's history into sharp focus.
All visitors to the island call in at the old whaling station at Grytviken. Its rusting machinery speaks to a dark past while its reclamation by the wildlife points to a more optimistic future. Be sure to check out the excellent museum as well as raising a toast at Shackleton's grave here.
To get closer to Shackleton, retrace the final leg of his 1916 survival trek across the mountains with the hike from Fortuna Bay to the whaling station Stromness Harbour. It's a rare treat to visit the other side of the island to see where he first landed at King Haakon Bay.
The more modest landing sites at Godthul and Jason Harbour also contain relics of South Georgia's whaling days, as well as offering great wildlife viewing opportunities, while the old whaling station of Prince Olav Harbour contains many buildings and one of the island's most impressive shipwrecks.
Best landing sites for dramatic scenery
South Georgia is home to some of the most dramatic landscapes you'll encounter anywhere. It could hardly be otherwise when the whole island is a mountain range rising out of the sea and topped with snow and glaciers. But some locations remain especially jaw-dropping.
If your ship sails around the southern tip of the island there's a good chance that you'll call at Drygalski Fjord, a long tongue of water surrounded by dramatic peaks, with glaciers calving straight into the sea. Glaciers are also a feature of Gold Harbour, where a large king penguin colony is overlooked by a beautiful hanging glacier that glows in the early morning light.
Sailing between the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, look out for the jagged teeth of Shag Rocks erupting from the sea and thick with seabirds.
Cruising to the head of Dryglaski Fjord
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South Georgia visitor guidelines
The Government of South Georgia & the South Sandwich Islands recognises 49 approved visitor sites on South Georgia, with the most popular covered by special Visitor Site Management Plans to ensure their conservation. This guidance, conveyed to you by the expedition leader on your ship must be strictly adhered to at all times. Some sites are suitable for zodiac cruising only, while others are out of bounds to ships carrying more than 200 passengers.
Our list of South Georgia landing sites is for guidance only. Ship itineraries and visits to specific locations in South Georgia are never guaranteed. While your operator will always do their best to maximise your time in South Georgia, plans can change as fast as the polar weather. Decisions on which locations to visit are always made on the day by the ship's captain and expedition leader. The only exception to this is Grytviken: all ships must call here to undergo immigration and biosecurity procedures.
What our customers think of South Georgia Landing Sites
More about South Georgia
How to get to South Georgia
Although South Georgia is more challenging to get to than almost any other place on earth, there is a choice of routes for getting to this remote island.
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South Georgia Wildlife
Numbers alone simply can’t explain how extraordinarily abundant and breathtaking the wildlife of South Georgia is: this is the Serengeti of the Southern Ocean
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South Georgia Island History
South Georgia has a rich history, from the darkest days of industrial whaling and the heroics of Ernest Shackleton to the modern recovery of its ecosystem.
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With over 100 years of South Georgia experience between us, we can help you to exactly the right trip for you.
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