Our Gateway to Antarctica
Getting
to Antarctica is not the easiest trip. There are no commercial flights,
no hotels, no resorts, and most researchers are ambivalent about
tourism. On the one hand they want people to become more aware of this
vast unknown land, but on the other hand they worry about contamination
and commercial exploitation.
If you look at our globe from the bottom, you see that Antarctica is surrounded by a wide expanse of inhospitable ocean. The nearest inhabited land masses are South Africa, about 2,500 miles away, Tasmania and New Zealand, about 1,600 miles away, and South America, only 650 miles away from the Antarctic peninsula.
Ushuaia, Argentina boasts of being the southernmost city in the world. It is certainly the closest place with a commercial airport to any part of Antarctica, and as such is the jumping off point for tourist expeditions to Antarctica. To get there you fly to the Argentine capitol, Buenos Aires, and then take an internal flight to Ushuaia.