66° South

The existence of Antarctica wasn’t confirmed until 1820.

The Southern Continent was an assumption, a theory, a guess proposed by early Greek philosophers who, knowing that the earth was a sphere, reasoned that a large land mass covered its Southern half. They named this land mass Terra Australis Incognita - The Unknown Southland, and its proposed outline on charts until the Nineteenth Century was labeled ED (existence doubtful) and PD (position doubtful).

Captain James Cook first set off to explore the extreme Southern latitudes in 1768. He didn’t find it, but he did prove where it was not. Two years into his second voyage in 1775, Cook made it to the Antarctic circle, 66° 33’ 39” South, and beyond another five degrees. He declared that no good would come to anyone who persevered further.

And so we head to Antarctica now, an easier travel, but still long, even by today’s standards: three flights, three countries, two continents, and 24 hours, just to reach our ship’s port of embarkation. We journey from Seattle to Dallas, to Santiago, to reach Ushuaia, Argentina, the Southern tip of South America—and the closest point to the Antarctic Continent.