Antarctica Unlocked

1,000 departures across 14 operators and 39 ships

Cruises visiting Patagonia

191 upcoming Antarctic expeditions with Patagonia on the route, from $10,147 per person.

Patagonia frames the start or end of many Antarctic journeys — granite spires, blue glaciers and guanaco steppe shared between Chile and Argentina.

Some itineraries cruise the Chilean fjords, sailing past the glaciers of the Darwin Range before or after the far south; many travellers bolt on Torres del Paine or El Calafate by land.

Wildlife you can spot here

Wildlife

Southern Rockhopper Penguin

A small, spiky-crested penguin found around the southern tip of South America and its outlying islands. Its tangled taxonomic history makes it a quietly interesting stop on any Southern Ocean itinerary.

Wildlife

Southern Elephant Seal

The southern elephant seal is the largest of all pinnipeds, with bulls roughly twice the bulk of a walrus. Watching a beachful of them roar and shove over territory is one of the most physical wildlife spectacles the Southern Ocean offers.

Wildlife

Southern Right Whale

A stocky baleen whale with no dorsal fin and a head crusted in pale callosities, once hunted almost to extinction and now the whale most likely to breach or wave a fluke at passing ships. It favours the same cold, food-rich waters that expedition itineraries already follow.

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

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.

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