China-Singapore Jingwei, February 16 (Luo Kun, intern Xu Chang) "When you close your eyes, you can hear the sound of icebergs floating up and down with the seawater, or suddenly a bubble comes out and shatters with a 'bang'. "In 2018, the 21-year-old Thorntree came to Antarctica for the first time. This trip to Antarctica also planted the seeds for her to resign from the Internet giant and return to a travel agency.
Last year, China's National Geographic launched an Antarctic scientific expedition program that started at 99,800 yuan, and it was sold out immediately. Thorntree's travel agency also jointly chartered a boat with China's National Geographic to launch an Antarctic trip in February 2024, with a total itinerary of 17 days. It was the Chinese New Year, and all the guests on board were also in the Year of the Dragon in Antarctica.
The original price of the major shipping companies ranges from 10,000 US dollars to 50,000 US dollars, and most of the original tickets cost at least 60,000 or 70,000 yuan. Tens of thousands of dollars a ferry ticket is expensive in the eyes of many people, but some people say it is worth it. What attracted them to the far-flung continent of Antarctica?
Antarctic travel, the key to restart life?
"The feeling of being in contact with nature is very beautiful, and it will keep you coming back for the rest of your life," said Thorntree, "After my trip to Antarctica in 2018, I flew back to China and asked the flight attendant to bring me a glass of ice Coke, and when I watched the ice cubes float up and down in the glass, I felt like I also had a small cup of Antarctica in my hand." ”
As the last "seventh continent" on the earth, beauty, strangeness, and remoteness often become the first impression of many people when they mention Antarctica. And in recent years, as Antarctic tourism has become more popular, this mysterious continent no longer seems to be difficult to reach.
According to the International Association of Antarctic Tourism Organizations (IAATO), in the 2022-2023 Antarctic season, a total of 103988 tourists from around the world will reach Antarctica, exceeding the 100,000 mark for the first time. The total number of passengers increased by about 39.8% compared with 74,381 in the same period from 2019 to 2020. China is also becoming a major country for Antarctic tourism. In the 2017-2018 Antarctic season, Chinese tourists visited 8,273, accounting for 16% of the total number of tourists in Antarctica, making it the second largest source country in Antarctica.
At the same time, the heated discussion of "Antarctic scientific expedition tour" has also further brought Antarctic tourism into the public eye.
"Praise more than 100 lightning naked words! Tomorrow's birthday will do what it says!" On September 6, 2023, Hu Jing, a product manager at a major Internet company, posted a post on social media. In the end, there were not more than 100 likes, but that was obviously not the most important thing. Even with a million-dollar annual salary and promotion opportunities, on her 31st birthday, she still chose to submit a resignation application as a birthday gift for herself and the key to restart her life. And the decision to resign, she has been brewing for three years.
In the past three years, Hu Jing has been thinking about the importance of the meaning of life. Coupled with the disappearance of the traffic dividend of the Internet industry, for Hu Jing, the old life choices are disenchanting, and the new life choices have unlimited opportunities. So she chose to start a gap year to explore more possibilities for career development while traveling around the world. A trip to Antarctica was on Hu Jing's bucket list.
The first time the thorn tree went to the South Pole was by chance. In 2018, 21-year-old Thorntree worked at Chengdu Xingzhiyue International Travel Agency, and was finally selected by the company to go on a business trip to Antarctica. "More than 100,000 trips, two weeks without spending a penny, and I also took the company's subsidy. ”
Later, Thorntree went to work as a product manager in a major Internet factory, and the busy work of machinery often made her feel that she had become an "alienated screw".
"One summer, I was waiting for a traffic light outside the company building, and suddenly I remembered that in the Serengeti, Tanzania, we spent half an hour waiting for a cheetah to get up. But at this point, the green light comes on, and you will follow the crowd into the office. Countless such moments have brought Thorntree a deep feeling about life, and she is more willing to practice her "idealism" than a good job as defined by the world. So she went back to the travel agency where she originally worked, working as a marketing lead and tour leader, and has been to Antarctica three times so far.
Courtesy of the interviewee Thorn Tree
One of the reasons why the fat goose travels to Antarctica is to celebrate its 30th birthday. Coincidentally, she found that almost all of the four Chinese tourists on the ship had come to celebrate their 30th birthday. What's even more amazing is that after adding contact information, I found that everyone has a common WeChat friend. "At that time, I really felt that the world was small, and we were so fateful. ”
Fat Goose said that before getting on the boat, tourists can fill in the personal information form whether they want to spend the festival on the boat. If it's a birthday, the restaurant's back kitchen will prepare a birthday cake. The service team of the entire restaurant will come with a cake at a certain moment and sing a birthday song to bless you. And such an enthusiastic ceremony is performed on the ship almost every day.
More than 10 days of shared itinerary to make interpersonal relationships intimate. And every traveler to Antarctica has a different story.
Hu Jing met a girl on the boat. She chose to leave her old work environment because her career was hindered. In the year since she left, she has spent a lot of time traveling around the world, exploring many pristine regions, such as tropical rainforests and African savannahs. Hu Jing felt that this girl was very similar to her. They all believe that travel is not an end in itself, but an important thing is to gain a fresh perspective on the world from travel.
Traveler meet-and-greets are held on board, and Fat Goose meets a lot of interesting people on board. There are 82-year-old grandmothers who travel alone, and there are also young people who have traveled to South America for eight months after quitting their jobs and bought temporary tickets to come to Antarctica before sailing.
Fat Goose also once met a tourist on a boat with only one leg on crutches. It was later learned that he had been a sailor in Brazil, but had accidentally amputated a leg in an accident. After retiring, he turned to coaching to promote the Olympic spirit, and later produced many Olympic champions. "It's really admirable," Fat Goose lamented, "when you are accidentally deprived of all your talents, it takes a very strong willpower to overcome difficulties, and after overcoming, life will get better and better." ”
How to get to Antarctica?
Cruises to Antarctica usually depart from October to March each year. The most common embarkation points are in Ushuaia, Argentina, or Port Williams, Chile. In addition to cruises, there is also the option of flying to Antarctica, with the common boarding point in Punta Arenas, Chile.
Since Antarctica does not belong to any country, the visa you apply for depends on which country you board or board the plane from. It should be noted that there are currently no direct flights from China to Argentina or Chile, so you need to transfer at least once from the United States, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and other places, and you may also need to consider the visa issue of transiting to a third country when purchasing a ticket.
The Antarctic tourism products launched by Thorn Tree's travel agency are mainly divided into two categories, one is a group tour, and the other is a single boat ticket.
The tour will be led by a tour leader, gather from a city in China, fly to the cruise departure point and go to Antarctica, the cost includes international air tickets, Chinese services, etc. A single ticket requires the guest to arrive at the embarkation port by himself/herself, and the cost includes all non-self-pay activities on board, excluding round-trip alcohol.
In terms of tourist route arrangement, there are product categories such as the Antarctic Peninsula, the three islands of Antarctica, and crossing the Antarctic Circle. The trip to the Antarctic Peninsula takes more than 10 days, while the trip to the three islands of Antarctica and crossing the Antarctic Circle takes more than 20 days. Thorntree says about 90 percent of tourists choose to go to the Antarctic Peninsula.
Instead of buying the expensive original price ticket, many people will buy a "last minute" ticket, which is a special ticket issued by the shipping company 1-2 months before the departure of the ship, and the discount is generally more than 50%. On social media, there are also many travel bloggers who share tips for grabbing tickets with 50% off or even lower discounts. Zhongxin Jingwei learned from the interview that the "last minute" ferry prices of major shipping companies are generally 4,000 to 10,000 US dollars (about 28,756 yuan - 71,899 yuan), and the lowest fire sale price may only be more than 3,000 US dollars (more than 21,566 yuan). A number of interviewees said that if they did not grab a ticket at a special price, a trip to Antarctica would cost more than 100,000 yuan.
After comparing the number of passengers, sailing days, ship type parameters, hardware equipment and other factors, Fat Goose determined the target ship company, and finally bought the "last minute" ticket of the ship company with a 4% discount of 6,500 US dollars. The ticket price includes full accommodation and meals for the 13-day trip, but some onboard activities such as kayaking are subject to an additional fee. Including airfare and a period of time in Argentina, the cost of the Fat Goose's entire trip to Antarctica is around $10,000.
Hu Jing's Antarctic trip is scheduled for December 2023. After locking in several target shipping companies and applying for visas, Hu Jing began to contact domestic and foreign agents two months in advance, and synchronized all the special ferry tickets within the validity period of the visa. Finally, a week before the sailing, she bought a "last minute" ticket from a boat company at a 3% discount, except that she had to pay for the wine before and after disembarking, and the experience on board was exactly the same as the original ticket.
"It's like coming to another world"
If you reach the South Pole by boat, you need to cross the Drake Passage, and the sea area where this strait is located is also known as the "Devil's Westerly Belt". Seasickness is the first compulsory lesson in Antarctica that almost every tourist experiences.
The fat goose is seasick, so he took seasickness medicine in advance. But when the boat rocks with the big waves, you still feel dizzy. At this time, you basically have to walk against the wall, and the dinner plate moves back and forth on the table, and if the glass on the table is not put away, it will all "ding-ding" to the ground.
This shaking lasts about two days. And when the waves cross the Drake Passage and enter the South Pole, the waters begin to calm down. "It's like you've been in another world in an instant," is a phrase used by almost every respondent to describe the feeling of arriving in Antarctica for the first time.
Photo courtesy of the interviewee Fat Goose
The boundary between the unreal and the real is blurred and dissolved at the southernmost point of the earth.
The most impressive aspect of Antarctica for Hu Jing is a fjordland. "The sea is calm and long-grained, with only some ripples as the ship passes by. The sky is grayscale, completely reflected by the surface of the water. The white glacier is like a landscape that has been specially displayed at this moment. Such a view reminded Hu Jing of the word "too illusory".
The signal on the cruise ship is not good, and the entire Antarctic trip is almost completely cut off from the network. In Hu Jing's view, it is this extremely pure environment that gives her unprecedented peace: "I have also participated in meditation and visited temples, but I still find that I can't calm down. But for a few days in Antarctica, I felt very comfortable and refreshed, and the kind of calm I didn't have in many years. ”
"Antarctica is a place where you can reconcile with yourself," said Fat Goose, "When you live in the city, the troubles of life are basically in the dimension of decades, but in the face of the tens of millions of years of time in Antarctica, the troubles of the world will become very small." The weather is uncertain, the route needs to be adjusted at any time, you don't know what tomorrow will be like, and this uncertainty will also help people solve obsessions. ”
Photo courtesy of interviewee Hu Jing
Fat Goose, who works in quantitative finance, likes photography, and this time she went to Antarctica, she brought several different cameras. The stunning scenery will make her want to press the shutter all the time. One day, she took more than 3,000 photos.
Photo courtesy of the interviewee Fat Goose
On social media, Fat Goose shared a set of photographs titled "The Texture of Glaciers". For a long time, the pieces fell off the iceberg and landed in the ocean. After being exposed to the wind and sun, as well as the erosion of the waves, the lines of different directions are carved. "We'd be kayaking and going from glacier to glacier, maybe just a metre away. It is spectacular to the naked eye, and the moment will make people very awe of nature. ”
Photo courtesy of the interviewee Fat Goose
Antarctica Daily
Every day, various lectures will be held on the cruise ship to educate tourists about Antarctic biology, geographical environment, scientific research history and other knowledge. The disembarkation itinerary is divided into two types: landing and cruise. Landing is a step on a land plate in Antarctica, while a cruise is a ride in an assault boat and sightseeing at sea level.
The reason why Yang Bing came to Antarctica was to explore the distant and unknown. Her cruise ship has a landing or cruise every morning and afternoon, each activity lasts for one hour, you can get off the ship to see the animals of Antarctica up close, and feel the natural and cultural landscape of Antarctica.
Yang Bing mentioned that the cruise ship was equipped with 14 expedition members from various countries, including 2 Chinese expedition members. The expedition team members will do a good job of exploring and planning the tour route in advance every day to ensure the safety of the route, and if the route is affected by bad weather, it will need to be temporarily replaced. In addition to route planning, the expedition team members will also be responsible for assault boat driving and knowledge explanation.
A good expedition team member can take the experience of traveling to Antarctica to the next level.
Yang Bing said that the enthusiastic and lovely expedition members will lead them to see the newly discovered beautiful icebergs and share with them interesting things that happened on the cruise ship before. There is a kind of black ice in the waters of Antarctica, which is formed by tens of thousands of years of compression, with almost no bubbles and black in the seawater. The expedition team members would scoop up the black ice from the sea and take pictures for them.
Black Ice Courtesy of interviewee Yang Bing
Sometimes, there are special activities in the itinerary, such as sea kayaking, Antarctic diving, etc.
"When the dive begins, special music is played on the boat, and everyone who jumps into the water is greeted with cheers. Yang Bing said, "The atmosphere at this time is very similar to a party." Anyone who jumps on the boat will be given a glass of wine, and in a joyful atmosphere, everyone will celebrate this rare experience together.
Yang Bing still remembers that on a sunny afternoon, a barbecue was opened on the deck of the cruise ship. "At this time, the captain began to warn us that there were whales at six o'clock, and then at two o'clock and twelve o'clock," Yang Bing recalled, "and finally the captain said that we were surrounded by whales, so we decided to stop the boat." Please go out on deck and enjoy the moment. At this point, everyone gathered on the deck to watch the whale tail swing and cheer for every tail swing of the whale. Under clear skies, the surface of the Antarctic sea glows with golden waves. For Yang Bing, such a picture has also become a golden moment in her Antarctic travels.
Photo courtesy of interviewee Yang Bing
Engaged in artistic work, she will still be amazed by the beauty of Antarctica. "Humans have created many works of art, but the beauty of Antarctica is a beauty that does not need to be carved by human beings. ”
The ecological environment of Antarctica is relatively fragile, so there are high requirements for ecological protection. All visitors to Antarctica are subject to the Antarctic Treaty. For example, no more than 100 people can be logged in at a time, and a distance of at least 5 meters from penguins and 15 meters from seals should be maintained. Before embarking and disembarking, visitors are also subjected to a comprehensive biological examination, including disinfection of clothing, to ensure that germs are not brought into Antarctica.
A two- to three-week trip may seem like a long time, but in fact, it is only the tip of the iceberg that can be touched. For the thorn trees that have been to the Antarctic three times, there is still infinite uncertainty and novelty in Antarctica.
"There are more than 200 landing sites in Antarctica, so it's like opening a blind box, not knowing what's in the blind box," Thorntree said, "Some colleagues have been to Antarctica 20 times, but some landing sites may be the first time he has been there, and some scenery he may have seen for the first time, and this is the magic of Antarctica." ”
And the more you understand, the more you can feel that Antarctica is not just a beautiful place. The experience of working and traveling to Antarctica three times gave Thorntree a deeper feeling for the human history of Antarctica: "The entire Antarctic has a very cruel history of whaling in the past hundred years. After learning about such a history, it is very touching to see the whales of Antarctica swimming happily. ”
Courtesy of the interviewee Thorn Tree
Who are the people who go to Antarctica?
Respondents generally said that tourists to Antarctica are generally divided into two groups, one is retired middle-aged and elderly people, and the other is young backpackers.
Judging from the Chinese tourists contacted by Thorn Tree, the customers are mainly over 40 years old and financially free. The proportion of young people is relatively small, and most of them are international students, or engaged in industries such as the Internet and medicine.
"The increasing proportion of Chinese tourists is the trend of the future. "On Thorn Tree's last business trip to Antarctica, there were 152 tourists on the entire cruise ship, and about 60 Chinese tourists. She also mentioned that the age of tourists will be getting lower: "As social media increases the marketing of ferry tickets, more and more young Chinese and overseas Chinese students will also want to buy tickets to Antarctica." ”
Liu Simin, vice president of the Tourism Branch of the China Future Research Association, told China-Singapore Jingwei that the popularity of Antarctic tourism is only the tip of the iceberg, and the era of mass tourism will only roll forward. "When the economy and society develop to a certain stage, the development of material consumption is abundant, and it will inevitably move towards spiritual consumption," Liu Simin said, "and tourism is a form of consumption with material consumption as the carrier and spiritual consumption as the appeal, which has the dual characteristics of material consumption and spiritual consumption, and will also become one of the main forms of consumption after we enter a well-off society." ”
Zhou Mingqi, founder of Jingjian Think Tank, an industry research and consulting organization, believes that the current tourism market presents differentiated demand characteristics. High-end tourism is mainly aimed at high-net-worth individuals, who will pursue a more unique travel experience, and Antarctic tourism just meets the needs of this group of people. In the past, there were relatively few high-end tourism products in China, so the supply side needs to be changed and improved.
For China's future high-end tourism market, Zhou Mingqi expressed optimism. He believes that the high-end tourism market will be further segmented and iterative, and the products will be more personalized and customized to meet the needs of different groups.
In the 2017-2018 Antarctic season, China has become the second largest source of tourists to Antarctica. Regarding the future development trend, Zhou Mingqi said that Chinese tourists have strong economic strength, and in terms of the number of outbound tourists, the number of Chinese tourists in the world before the epidemic ranked first in the world. He predicts that the proportion of Chinese tourists may rise further in the future, and may even become the largest source country for tourists in Antarctica.
(At the request of the interviewee, the thorn tree and the fat goose in the article are pseudonyms)
(For more reporting clues, please contact the author of this article, Luo Kun: [email protected]) (Sino-Singapore Jingwei APP)
(The views in the article are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice, investment is risky, and you need to be cautious when entering the market.) )
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