Scared was too strong a word to describe how I was feeling en route to Antarctica. I was nervous—uneasy, really. Our ship, the National Geographic Explorer, had just departed Ushuaia, the Argentinian resort town, southernmost city in South America, and last human-inhabited stop in the Western hemisphere before reaching Antarctica. Leaving a place nicknamed the End of the World to go explore the Bottom of the World didn’t reassure me. What was I thinking coming here?
My feelings changed late that first evening, shortly before we reached the beginning of the Drake Passage. I relaxed a little while talking to a woman on board, another journalist, who told me this voyage marked her fifth to Antarctica. My calmed nerves were less about the number of times she had made the trip down and more about how she spoke about the continent—why she loved every aspect of it, even the rougher sailings, and the way being there made her feel.
I felt better knowing someone could feel that way about a place like this, as if I could too (or, at least, be open to the idea). I didn’t know it then, but this was only the beginning of several encounters I had with women on my 10-day trip with National Geographic-Lindblad Expeditions—from guests to expedition leaders—that shaped my first time seeing Antarctica.
Elise Lockton, a naturalist, eight-season expedition leader, and opening act for nearly all of our onshore landings, could usually be found orating the history of the islands we visited. Like the master of ceremonies of a traveling act introducing the world’s greatest spectacle to a wide-eyed audience, Lockton set the tone of each landing with backstory, history, and color that made even this majestic backdrop surrounding us seem flat without her accompanying narration.
“If you look on nautical charts, it calls this island Bombay Island after this boat,” Lockton said of the remains of an old whaler’s boat we stood feet away from on D’Hainaut Island in Mikkelsen Harbor one morning.
One afternoon, I stopped Maria Intxaustegi—a fifth-season maritime archeologist, mountaineer, and general badass—on top of a structurally sound glacier at Portal Point. She was canvassing for crevasses that she had been monitoring for years. There is a fire about her, a passion not only for the academic and physical work she does in Antarctica, but also for the conservation advocacy she hopes travelers will be inspired by after their experiences here.
“People protect what they love,” Intxaustegi said. “I love documentaries, but if you really want to touch the hearts of people, you need to feel it. You need to cry here, as I’ve seen with some guests. You need to feel the drama and the fragility of this place, and then you will be reborn. Then you will want to make a change; maybe donate or support some scientist doing their PhD in a tiny university. There are so many ways.”
Male-imposed gendered barriers in polar history meant to exclude women from, or limit their free access to, Antarctica is hardly shocking, given the challenges women have nearly always faced in accessing education, suffrage, and reproductive autonomy—even to this day. It was only in 1969 that the U.S. Navy lifted its ban on the transportation of women to Antarctica. Australian women were not allowed on national Antarctic research expeditions until 1976. Polar research and expeditions were considered inherently masculine endeavors unsuitable for women during the heroic age of Antarctic exploration, which began in 1897 and lasted until 1922. Antarctica was often feminized, with explorers of the era addressing it as if it were something to be conquered and penetrated in pursuit of their legacies.
Around the early 19th century, according to the International Antarctic Association of Tour Operators, women began to appear in the Antarctic and Sub-Antarctic, first largely as companions of their husbands on polar expeditions, and later, in the early 20th century, as researchers and scientists. That history doesn’t stretch back nearly as far for women of color; Barbara Hillary was the first African American woman to reach Antarctica, in 2010, and also became the first Black woman to reach both the North and South poles.
Photographing Adélie penguins in Danger Islands of Antarctica.
Photo by Ralph Lee Hopkins
Today, there are large numbers of women in the science communities conducting research in Antarctica; women comprise 55 percent of the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists’ membership. That goes for tourism numbers as well; Quark Expeditions, for example, reported in 2023 that women accounted for 53 percent of its travelers to Antarctica.
Lindblad Assistant Expedition Leader Courtney Cox, who completed her second season in 2024, is responsible for securing guest, staff, and crew safety for all operations: In Zodiac sailings, for example, she ensures staff have working GPS, good sound radio conditions, and overall confidence navigating the conditions they’re in. Working in Antarctica has been a dream come true for Cox, who is from the Midwest, but one she wants to assure other girls and women is entirely possible to achieve.
“I think I’m like many of us, where we grew up watching and reading National Geographic, and [I remember] just the pure excitement you felt from just knowing places like Antarctica exist on the same planet as you,” Cox said.
She continued, “I have met so many badass women in the field that are conducting polar research, diving for scientific and storytelling purposes, and eloquently advocating not just for a remote and vital part of the world, but for the vital role that women play in that region as well.”
Increasingly, women are making up higher numbers of travelers to Antarctica.
Photo by Torsten Dederichs/Unsplash
Trips to Antarctica that put women front and center
In addition to cruise lines Quark and Lindblad, which incorporate women into their expedition teams, several companies have all-women offerings. Here are three options for women-focused Antarctic expeditions.
Wild Women, which brings women together on adventurous trips around the world, offers trips to Antarctica that aim to follow in the footsteps of the pioneering female researchers and explorers before them.
AdventureWomen leads small groups of women on active trips to Antarctica alongside a designated AdventureWomen ambassador who accompanies the group on departures.
Aurora Expeditions has women-only departures to Antarctica that include replacing the ship voyage through the Drake Passage with a direct flight to and from King George Island.