Cruises visiting Elephant Island

Elephant Island is hallowed ground in polar history: Shackleton's 22 castaways survived four and a half months under two upturned boats at Point Wild after Endurance sank. Voyages pause offshore at the memorial to Piloto Pardo, whose ship finally rescued them.

The island is bleak, storm-lashed and usually too rough to land on — which is precisely the point. Seeing it from a Zodiac makes the story real.