It was January 2024, but Pascale remembered it as if it were yesterday. "Antarctica is a once-in-a-lifetime journey that changes you. You see spectacular landscapes, untouched snow, colonies of penguins. Everything is silent except for the sound of falling ice," recalled the 64-year-old personal development coach, who lives outside Paris and asked not to share her last name.

During the 13 days she spent aboard a ship from Exploris, alongside "fascinating young scientists," Pascale said she "learned a lot about the fragility of ecosystems." Even though she sometimes felt like an "intruder in this highly protected environment."

As summer comes to a close in the Northern Hemisphere, a new tourist season is about to kick off at the far edge of the Southern Hemisphere. In just a few years, the "white continent" has become a sought-after destination: Approximately 118,000 people (40% of whom were from the US) visited during the 2024-2025 season, which ran from October to March. That was a dramatic surge compared to the previous decade: Only 36,000 tourists came in 2014-2015. In the 1990s, the numbers were three times lower.

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