Antarctica Unlocked

1,000 departures across 14 operators and 39 ships

Cruises visiting Beagle Channel

400 upcoming Antarctic expeditions with Beagle Channel on the route, from $5,995 per person.

The Beagle Channel is the departure corridor from Ushuaia: every Drake-crossing voyage begins and ends with its calm, mountain-walled waters, named for Darwin's ship.

Sailing out at dusk past sea lion colonies and lighthouse islets is the traditional start of an Antarctic expedition — the last green landscape for days.

Wildlife you can spot here

Wildlife

Wandering Albatross

The snowy albatross, better known as the wandering albatross, has the widest wingspan of any living bird alive today. Watch for it riding the wind for hours behind the ship without a single wingbeat.

Wildlife

Black-Browed Albatross

A large seabird of the albatross family, the black-browed albatross is the most widespread and common of all albatrosses. Its dark eye-stripe makes it one of the easiest albatrosses to pick out from a rolling deck.

Wildlife

Commerson's Dolphin

A small, sharply marked black-and-white dolphin found only around the tip of South America, often seen riding the bow wave in narrow channels. Its jacobita or panda-dolphin nickname comes from the bold two-tone pattern that make it hard to mistake for anything else.

Wildlife

Sperm Whale

The sperm whale is the largest toothed predator on Earth, hunting giant squid at depths few other mammals reach. Its blunt, box-shaped head holds the largest brain of any animal.

Wildlife

Peale's Dolphin

A small, sturdy dolphin found only in the waters off southern South America, sometimes still called the black-chinned dolphin for the dark patch under its jaw. Watch for it riding bow waves as your ship threads the channels toward Antarctica.

Wildlife

South American Sea Lion

Bulky, maned bulls and sleek females haul out together on beaches from the Falklands to the Beagle Channel. Watching a dominant male defend his patch of shoreline is one of the more entertaining wildlife spectacles of the region.

Wildlife

Imperial Shag

A black-and-white cormorant with a startling ring of blue skin around each eye, nesting in dense colonies on bare coastal rock. Look for it wherever cliffs meet water, often perched stiff-winged like a heraldic emblem.

By operator

By month

Compare all Antarctic departures across operators →