The World's Top 10 Aerial Tours
www.antarcticaflights.com.au
The Scenery: Remote, frozen Antarctica is the most pristine and least explored continent on the planet. Getting here—never mind exploring—can be extremely challenging, so the only way to do a day trip is to fly. From above, you’ll have spectacular views over ice-encrusted mountains and massive icebergs.
The Flight: Croydon Travel in association with Qantas runs 11-hour round-trip flights on Boeing 747 passenger jets, leaving from Melbourne and Sydney. Four hours is spent flying over the Antarctic scenery at 10,000 feet with the pilot making sweeping figure-eight loops over all of the best landmarks—some of which are mountains that close the altitude gap to 2,000 feet. During the “dead time” flying to and from Australia, Antarctica experts host discussions on natural history and environmental topics.
When to Go: The very limited flights are offered in December and January this year and next, and need to be booked well in advance. Especially popular is the New Year’s Eve flight, where passengers are the first to see the first sunrise of the New Year while singing “Auld Lang Syne” and dancing in the aisles.
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