Group visits to the remote but historic South Pole for $45,500

A century ago this month, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team became the first humans to reach the geographic South Pole, which is nearly 1,000 miles from the Antarctica coast.

The following month, British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his own team reached the Pole, but they died on the return journey.

“Today, some intrepid travelers still make it to Earth's southernmost point, though they're only a small fraction of the approximately 30,000 people who visit Antarctica each year,” according to the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators.

"There's a lot of excitement over the centennial anniversaries, and there's been more interest in South Pole expeditions because of that," said Annie Aggens, a spokesperson and guide for Polar Explorers, an Illinois-based company that specializes in expeditions to polar regions.

For instance, the company usually takes about two teams of four to six people to the South Pole a year, but this year they're taking at least four, Aggens said.

Though the Antarctic tour operators' organization has not made an exact estimate, there will likely be hundreds of people making the pilgrimage to the Pole during the 2011-2012 Southern Hemisphere summer season.

Most visitors to Antarctica remain aboard cruise ships or coastal camps.

Getting to the South Pole, though, requires either skiing from the coast or flying in via private helicopter.

There are no facilities for travelers at the Pole—the only settlement, the U.S. Amundsen-Scott South Pole research station, does not usually house tourists. This season, however, tourists will be able to stay at a base camp that has been set up especially for celebrations and events tied to the anniversaries.

Many of the people who want to visit the South Pole are attracted by the idea of experiencing something that the early explorers did, Aggens said.

Though cold-weather gear has much improved, and it's now possible to phone home at the end of each day, "when you've got a sled behind you and it's minus 40 degrees out, you're very much in the same conditions that Scott or Amundsen experienced," she said.

The ages of South Pole-bound visitors varies widely, but they generally tend to be between about 45 and 60 years old, she told National Geographic.

"Being older allows them a couple of things," she said. "They don't have commitments with children and things like that. And many of them also have a lifetime of working behind them and have the income to be able to do a trip that is not inexpensive."

Just how inexpensive? Polar Explorers charges US$45,500 for a flight to the pole on either anniversary and $65,000 for a two-month ski expedition, which involves pulling a 90-pound sled for 700 miles.

"They're skiing the whole way, from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole," Aggens said. "Every waking moment of the day, they're either eating or setting up or breaking camp or skiing."

The company also offers a combo flight-and-ski trip that lasts approximately two weeks for about $50,000.

By David Wilkening