Ever dreamt of spending an endless day in a big icy desert, just you and the albatrosses? So have a good many others, which is why glaciers aren’t the only thing booming in the Polar regions.

The Arctic North is an ocean surrounded by continents. Whereas southern Antarctica is a continent surrounded by ocean. But both are traversed by the same range of travelers – the well-heeled and intrepid, cold-loving people on a cruise of a lifetime, or on a trek across the tundra so to stand on a pole.

You can find extraordinary small cruise itineraries to the polar regions, where there is stellar circumnavigation of giant glaciers and off-lying islands. Or you can team up on an eco-tour, assisting research ships and stations with all sorts of interesting science, while honing your own skills in astronomy, in photography, in sea kayaking, or in buttoning up your coat in record time.

There is, of course, quite a show in the Polar regions: wilderness and fjords, seabird and penguin colonies, fur seals and muskox, whales and polar bears, wind and white-outs, national parks and dogsleds, museums in homage to the explorers who came before you, and indigenous people who were there all along. But mainly, there is the ice, for as far as the eye can see and in all directions around you, broken only by the light, which comes by way of never-setting sun, or by a brilliant display of aurora.

Contact a Global Escapes Travel Consultant for more information on tourism in the Polar regions, such as Antarctica and Greenland.