Best time to go to Antarctica

During the summer months, the days grow longer as they stretch toward the solstice, penguins begin to hatch bringing new life to the colonies and migrating whales have returned to the nutrient-dense Antarctic waters. This is the peak of activity in the polar continent, and the beginning of the Antarctic cruise season.

While expedition ships descend into the icy waters along the and into the Weddell Sea for five months each year, the season is at its best in January. Temperatures are their warmest, penguin chicks at their fluffiest and the days have just peaked at their longest.

Antarctica’s seasons are the same as Australia’s, with the summer solstice in December and the winter solstice in June.

During the winter months, the continent plunges into darkness and ice once again covers the Antarctic seas making it near impossible to approach land.

Antarctica begins to thaw in the late spring months, with temperatures at their warmest from December to February. But warm is very much relative. Down here, temperatures rarely reach the double digits, but peak above freezing on most days. 

While Antarctica is technically a huge desert, the Antarctic Peninsula is quite the opposite. An arm extending out to protect the Weddell Sea from the west, the peninsula can get up to 1,000mm of precipitation per year; that’s more than many tropical destinations. Luckily, most of it falls outside of the cruising season.

Ice cover is a major consideration for the cruising season down here; seasonal ice sheets can be hundreds of square kilometres in size and greatly limit access. Although many expedition ships come with polar-class hulls, this type of cover is too much for them to safely break through.

Home to a plethora of wildlife and marine life year-round, Antarctica truly buzzes during the height of summer in January and February. Gentoo penguins hatch from November, Megellanic chicks start to be seen between November and December, King penguins hatch between December and February and Adélie penguins come out of their shells in December.

Similarly, fluffy seal pups begin making their appearances in the late-spring and early-summer months. The birthing season starts with southern elephant seals and Weddell seals from October before leopard seals and Antarctic fur seals have their young from November.

After completing their long migration to warmer, tropical waters, the humpback whales make their return to the nutrient-rich Antarctic waters, arriving with their new calves around November. Minke whales are on a similar schedule, sometimes arriving back south a bit later.