Arctic Vacation; Do Something Different

Arctic Travel

While the idea of a holiday for most people is to pack their shorts and swimming costumes, buy an ugly shirt and prepare for a week or two of siestas and questionable music, there is a large and growing sector of society which feels like the party animal in all of us can be catered for adequately by bars and clubs in our home towns, and to expect this from our holidays is merely to export our town center to a sunnier location. Indeed, for many people the idea of sun, sand, sangria and other assorted things beginning with “S” is as far away from the perfect holiday as it is possible for a thing to be. Snow, however, is to be actively welcomed on a trip to the Arctic – something which has caught the imagination of many since the first packages to the area started running.

A holiday to the Arctic may seem like the direct opposite of what constitutes a “proper” holiday for many people, but when you consider it for a while, it makes perfect sense. After all, what could be more different than traveling to somewhere where the temperature is perpetually sub-zero (Celsius) and the common practice of a typical holiday almost literally a world away? If sea and sun is what you expect of a holiday, of course it won’t hold much magic for you, but for many the most important thing about a holiday is  to see something different and live in a different way. This much is definitely possible on an Arctic vacation.

An Arctic holiday, essentially, can be any break taken inside the “Arctic Circle” in a geographic sense. This means that we are not just talking North Pole here, there are several other locations, including some within Canada and much of Alaska. Additionally there are European locations such as Greenland, Iceland and Russia, as well as Antarctica itself. So what would you do while there? There are countless things that make it worth a visit, not least a range of wildlife that makes it entirely different and original. On any safari holiday you can see lions or tigers and a number of other wild cats among other things, but only on a visit to somewhere as cold as the Arctic can you see Polar bears, snow leopards and penguins. Opportunities for the photographer are certainly plentiful.

Additionally, the difference of the activities you can take part in makes an Arctic holiday a really good idea. At the right times of year you can see the famed Aurora Borealis – almost habitually listed among the things you must do before you die – and the opportunities for pursuits like dog sledding and kayaking are also worth bearing in mind. If you fancy doing something really different, a break in the Arctic Circle – possibly by cruise – would be well worth looking in to. There is an increasingly long list of travel agents which offer the opportunity to go, as well as many who specialize in particularly fascinating breaks.