The Arctic vs Antarctica: Which Is Better?

If you've ever wondered what the difference is between the arctic and antarctica or which polar expedition is actually better this video is for you because even though both are icy remote and absolutely insane in the best way they are not even close to the same experience. We've now done both. We explored the arctic around Svalbard and also sailed the antarctic peninsula and crossed below the antarctic circle with quark expeditions and after doing both we can confidently say this. One feels like a wildlife safari while you're searching for rare moments and the other feels like you got dropped straight into a wildlife documentary. So in this video we're breaking down the real differences between the arctic and antarctica when it comes to wildlife, hiking, weather, logistics, scenery and which one might actually be the better trip for you. If you guys are new here we're Gisele and Stephen also known as the lovers passport and we take you on a new bucket list adventure every single week of the year. If you guys love to travel and love seeing how beautiful this incredible world is make sure to leave this video a like and subscribe. Now with that let's go ahead and dive into one of the most beautiful places in all of the world. So first up we need to give you some context. When we think of the arctic you need to think about the ocean surrounded by some land compared to antarctica which is basically a continent surrounded by an ocean. That one difference is going to change everything about the wildlife, the experience, the weather and everything about these two places. Even though technically they are both located on the north and the south pole of the earth we had completely different experiences on both sides. So let's talk about the differences in getting to the arctic versus antarctica. We're specifically going to be talking about this from an expedition standpoint so obviously there's many different arctic expeditions that you can choose from. We are specifically going to be referencing our experience in flying into Longyearbyen in Svalbard versus Antarctica but there are other alternatives for arctic expeditions leaving out of the Canadian high arctic, out of Greenland, out of Iceland. There's lots of different other arctic itineraries to choose from so this is just from our personal experience comparing the two trips. So getting to Svalbard was actually pretty easy. We actually flew into Helsinki and then Quark Expeditions chartered a flight from Helsinki directly to Longyearbyen. We reached it there without any additional issues and there aren't as many like famous weather delays when it comes to embarking on the voyage out there as there are in Antarctica. So we hopped on right on time right as per schedule. So once you land you're basically already in the immersive arctic experience. Once you're out of the Longyearbyen airport the polar bear signs are everywhere. Your arctic wildlife experience could potentially start happening the second you're off the plane. You don't really have to do a lot of effort to get there. Now comparing that to your Antarctica expedition journey to get there, we flew to Buenos Aires from Los Angeles and then we spent the night there. We had our charter flight similar to the arctic that Quark organized and then we flew down to Ushuaia. Now from Ushuaia to Antarctica you still have two days of sailing across the drake passage so you're not automatically in Antarctica when you are flying there. That being said there are some expedition companies that offer flyover options where this would be comparable and you could actually just fly directly into the Antarctic peninsula. Most Antarctica expeditions will be crossing the drake passage in order to get to Antarctica but just know that if you are 100% you know you get like seasick and you cannot handle any form of waves or seasickness then you might want to do the flyover option. Quark does offer that on some of their itineraries but we did the sailing through the drake passage so it wasn't as immediate as Svalbard when it came to the journey. We had to add extra time onto our trip before and after so four days of sailing the drake passage on our entire expedition trip that weren't necessarily in Antarctica. Now if you've heard of drake passage you know it can be very scary for some people based on what conditions you get. A lot of people were so eager to find out if we were getting the drake lake which is very calm passing or the drake shake which is what you see on tiktok with all the viral videos of these crazy waves. We had some people messaging us that they were getting like 12 to 20 foot waves on their drake passage crossing. We got very lucky we got the drake lake and we only had two to three meter waves the whole way so out of the four days of us crossing back and forth there's only one day where people felt a little bit uneasy not even necessarily nauseous just a little uneasy. The rest of the time felt totally normal and I'm someone who's prone to scenes like feeling a little more seasick than Stephen and I thought it was totally manageable. These are G's cool yeah. Slay. Are you okay G? It's like it's just annoying because it's not like chronic potential nausea. Just thinking about that if you're more prone to seasickness and that kind of stuff the arctic might be a little bit better in terms of overall consistency with the waves and whatnot but no you're sailing out on the open ocean so regardless of which destination you're choosing you could get some different weather conditions depending on when you go. So TLDR arctic is easier to get to antarctic you take some effort to get there because you have to cross the So now let's start talking about wildlife. It really felt like abundance versus more of a search mentality between these two trips. In Antarctica the wildlife is everywhere. We saw thousands of different penguins hundreds of different whales around the ship as well as we also got to see three different type of seals throughout the entire trip. Everywhere you look it felt like there was wildlife there was just this massive abundance whether we woke up in the morning walked out on our front deck and were able to see whales or if we were in a zodiac or in a kayak penguins would pop up to the left to the right of us it felt like everywhere we went in Antarctica it was filled with beautiful wildlife. Now when we compare that to the arctic it definitely felt a lot more like a safari. We had to go looking for polar bears you didn't just see them every single day you had to do a lot more searching when it came to like the arctic fox or any of the birds out there. It felt like it was just a lot more suspenseful because you're waiting a lot for these amazing wildlife encounters to happen and then when finally something does happen it's like everyone on the ship freaks out like during our expedition there was one moment where the captain announced there was a polar bear in front of the ship and i'm pretty sure every single person on the ship ran to the front compared to when we were in Antarctica if the captain announced that there was a whale in front you would see some people but i feel like by the end of the trip people were like i've already seen a hundred whales i don't i'm not going to get out of bed for this so you can completely see the difference between the two. I remember when we were on our arctic expedition one of our guides said that they were happy we did the arctic expedition before the antarctic expedition because in the arctic you appreciate the wildlife encounters a lot more just because they're far and few between compared to in antarctica there's an abundance it's like if you did antarctica and then you went to the arctic it might feel like you saw what less wildlife now that being said if you look at the type of wildlife it's a whole different story and what i mean by that is in antarctica we would see like three different types of penguins and we would see thousands of them we would see these massive colonies at one time compared to in the arctic you would see way more variety on the type of different species of birds you would see polar bears foxes walrus seals thousands upon thousands of birds and different types of them so when you look at the variety that we were able to see in the arctic versus the antarctic we honestly saw a wider array of the wildlife in the arctic but there was fewer of them if that makes sense so way more wildlife abundance when you think of antarctica but way more abundance of species and different types that you'll find in the arctic and when we asked our guides about this the key reason is because when you think of antarctica it's one giant continent right and it's very very difficult to winter there compared to if you look at the arctic there's tons of sea there's lots of different areas that you can live on when it comes to wildlife so they get a much wider variety since it's over a bigger area compared to antarctica there's much fewer places where you're going to find wildlife so the wildlife that can live there they have to be very resilient to the weather and very resilient to just survive there in the arctic the predators are hunting each other a lot more which is why it feels like you have to hunt them yourself you're constantly looking for them because the wildlife are hiding from the other predators like the polar bear or the arctic fox compared to like in the antarctica there aren't really many predators to the penguin and the whales these animals just get to live in peace down there the most exciting thing that happens to them is when humans show up because they're like who are you what are you doing here they because they don't have many interactions with humans now let's talk about the difference between the main experience in both destinations in antarctica you sail there and you're immediately just surrounded by wildlife you're thrown in there's icebergs when you wake up the second you cross the antarctic peninsula there's penguins there's humpback whales it truly feels like you step into just like a scene out of a movie where it's super magical and there's so much going on so that's it in terms of experience now in terms of activity level i will say in antarctica we did a lot more zodiac cruising and more zodiac landings with short walks on anything it didn't feel like an extreme activity level where you needed to be in shape to do any of the activities so we did paddleboarding we did kayaking and we did the zodiacs and out of all of them you could have been a beginner at any of them and been totally fine activity level physical activity wise you don't need to be super in shape to do any of these activities that are completely bucket list that being said compared to our experience in svalbard svalbard felt like it was a lot more active we did a lot more hiking on that trip than we did in antarctica it was really interesting kind of experiencing the two since we did the arctic first and antarctica second i thought we would be doing a lot more like long walks hikes split and it was very different so while we were in the arctic we had to split up into like pace groups so like slow medium medium fast and fast hikers because we had to split up into groups that were led by guides to protect us from potential polar bear sightings so we all had to stick together it was groups of like 10 and 2 guides that were armed in the event of a polar bear sighting so it was very structured and we were on land for a lot longer in my opinion than we were in antarctica and then when it came to our zodiac landings in antarctica they were a little bit shorter if you will like one to two hours max versus like up to four hours in the arctic and all of the walking around was a lot more tame it felt just like a quick walk not a hike so svalbard much more hiking oriented antarctica much more walking oriented when you're off the ship both of them felt like they had the same zodiac experience though in terms of the zodiac landings the zodiac cruises you got to see so much out on the zodiacs in both destinations and the kayaking felt pretty comparable in the arctic versus the antarctic it really just comes down to in the arctic we saw much more like ice sheet versus in antarctica we saw more icebergs so in summary there if you want something that's a little more exploratory a little more adventurous like hiking then maybe choose the arctic for your first trip and then choose antarctica after now let's jump into weather comparisons honestly overall they felt pretty similar in svalbard i think we did have a couple more days of sunshine we went in may and we went to antarctica in march which is the latter half of the season so both times we went shoulder season may is the early side of the svalbard season it's the first month that most expeditions run so we were right on that shoulder there and then being the last expedition to antarctica for quark this year we were also in another shoulder season so comparing the shoulder seasons together they were pretty similar we had a couple days of sunshine a couple days of snow storm fog it changes rapidly in both locations sometimes we were out in our base layers and just like a fleece sweater sometimes we were fully wrapped up in all of our layers and parkas and all the winter accessories i will say antarctica felt more wild and more raw and untamed when it came to the weather because the the weather did switch a little more rapidly whereas it felt a little more consistent in our experience in the arctic but i will say as a whole they are very comparable so i packed almost the exact same way for both trips i think on both trips the highest it got was anywhere in the low to mid 40s so just keep that in mind when you are packing for either expedition now let's talk about the scenery and just the overall vibe difference between the arctic and antarctica when you think of antarctica and when you're there it really feels absolutely massive it's a gigantic continent everywhere we went the icebergs felt like cities the mountains felt like some of the biggest mountains i've ever seen because we're at sea level and they look straight up from you everything just feels very grand it honestly does feel like you're on a completely different planet it's like a cinematic scene that you would encounter in like a movie called interstellar compared to when i think of the arctic and more svalbard it feels a lot more mysterious it feels a lot more raw and wild the icebergs in svalbard just feel a little smaller there's more ice fields that you'll go through compared to like massive glaciers and calvings that you're going to see in antarctica and when i think of like two words that come to mind when i go to antarctica it feels more like a spectacle it's like mountains mixed with glaciers and beautiful water compared to in the arctic it feels more like exploration every different fjord and area that we could go it just felt like we were exploring a lot more of those compared to in antarctica is like everywhere we went i felt like my jaw was on the floor now this is an interesting comparison when we're talking how far you'll actually go compared to the north and south poles in svalbard long year to be in is actually already super far north so we were able to sail all the way up to 81 degrees north and i know some expeditions after us were actually able to cruise past where we got to since like i said we were in the earlier shoulder season but that's pretty darn north now if you were to compare the same to where we got to in antarctica when we crossed the antarctic circle we got to about 60 degrees south so comparison wise we were much more north in the arctic versus how far south we were in antarctica that's just like an interesting comparison i wouldn't necessarily judge which trip you should go on based on that but we just thought we'd throw it in there because it was a fun little tidbit now we can say we've crossed the arctic circle and the antarctic circle but you already cross the arctic circle when you fly into longyearbyen so it's not like you're doing it on the voyage whereas if you're doing the crossing the circle expedition on quark you do it while you're sailing and an extra fun fact on both of that is depending on what time of year you go you might be able to see the northern or southern lights based on the weather conditions now typically for antarctica cruises you'd only see the southern lights in march out of the whole season because the antarctica season is typically november to march and it's the opposite as northern light season which makes sense they're in completely different regions northern light season is typically from september to april so if you're on a sailing during those time frames maybe you'll get lucky if the weather window is clear if you want to know exactly your chances on how to see if you're going to get the northern lights on your sailing or how to photograph them we have a whole video which i'll link up here for you to check out because we love chasing those lights we unfortunately were not lucky on our antarctica expedition even though the kp index was high we were in the right latitude i was checking my aurora app but alas we had cloud coverage so that kind of ruined our chances but i have heard of people being able to see them from their ship in antarctica so it's really just a lucky game i will say don't expect it it's very rare just know it can happen and if you get to see it you're extremely lucky so let's decide which one would be better for you i would probably choose antarctica if you want to see insane wildlife density as well as if you really are looking to see the penguins and the whales everywhere another thing is if you want to feel like you are at the end of the earth and if you're okay with a harder journey because the journey there is definitely a little rougher the payoff at the end and the amount of wildlife you're gonna see on this experience is just completely mind-blowing and i would choose the arctic or svalbard if you want more of an expedition feeling or maybe if you want to see more polar bears instead of penguins or maybe you really are looking for the thrill of searching for wildlife and feeling like you're on the hunt or if you're just looking for a little bit easier travel logistics is svalbard much easier to get to absolutely do they have the massive polar bears that you can see yes that being said you will have to search a lot more to find wildlife in plentiful numbers compared to what you're gonna see in antarctica so overall this video is not to compare and say which is better because we absolutely loved both experiences and would do both of them again in a heartbeat it's just to help you figure out which experience is better for you for your first polar expedition i'm really happy that we did the arctic first and then antarctica it made me really appreciate both experiences respectively they were very different in terms of wildlife and in terms of just like overall activity and whatnot but i am really happy that we started off with more like of a safari style expedition where we really had to search for wildlife and it was so cool that we all got to bond when we got to see polar bears versus then being able to just show up in antarctica and be almost overwhelmed with how spectacular the wildlife was so if i were to make a recommendation i'd say start in the arctic and then do antarctica you'll really appreciate the arctic more i think in that order and if you want to see our experience in both the arctic and antarctica we'll link both of those videos down below for you they are some of my favorite videos we've ever put out and i had such a phenomenal time on both sailings we'll also put a link to the exact sailings that we did with cork because there's a lot of different options to choose from when it comes to your itinerary so we'll put those down below and let us know are you choosing the arctic or antarctica first and with that we will see you back next week with another bucket list adventure