Luxury Travel

Echo Camp by White Desert, Antarctica

April 26, 2023

299

Wednesday newsletters all the time function a lodge or flight evaluate.

Last February, I loved a elegant vacation that I’ll bear in mind as my most epic journey ever: a visit to Cape Town (South Africa) and Antarctica (the seventh Continent). You can learn my journey experiences right here:

Today: Review of Echo Camp by White Desert, Antarctica

Managed by White Desert, Echo Camp on Antarctica earns each ounce of its title as essentially the most distant luxurious camp on the planet. Inspired by astronauts and the seminal age of Space exploration, Echo offers unique entry to the hardly ever seen inside of the White Continent. Visited by notable astronauts together with Buzz Aldrin and former ISS Commander Terry Virts, each spoke of the infinite Antarctic panorama and its dramatic mountain ranges, their magnificence surpassing that of Venus and Mars. Echo permits friends to mix an ultra-luxury expertise with a as soon as in lifetime journey. An skilled group of cooks, hosts and skilled guides permits friends to calm down or discover at their leisure. Every journey is bespoke with a large alternative of actions and highlights, resembling visiting the close by 28,000 robust Emperor Penguin colony or a bucket-list journey to the South Pole. As with all White Desert’s camps, Echo is designed to be dismantled, leaving no hint on the Antarctic panorama.

Echo options in my high 10 checklist of the world’s most distant luxurious camps.

Have you ever traveled with White Desert to Antarctica? If so, what was your expertise? Leave a remark.

In this evaluate (extra information and pictures beneath my YouTube video):

PROS & THINGS I LIKE

Nearly twice the scale of Australia , Antarctica, the seventh Continent, is a legendary and awe-inspiring vacation spot. The coldest, driest, windiest, and most distant place on the planet, it’s the closest you’ll really feel to being on one other planet with out leaving Earth. Antarctica is an ice-covered landmass and the one continent with out a time zone, with out everlasting residents, and with out reptiles. Antarctica can also be the journey of a lifetime for a lot of vacationers and it’s simpler to journey to Antarctica than one may assume. Most folks go to the Great White continent on a cruise, hereby exploring the Antarctic Peninsula, which stretches towards South America. But White Desert takes a completely totally different strategy and takes it friends by non-public aircraft to the majestic inside of Antarctica, dwelling of spectacular mountains and the magnetic South Pole. Visiting Antarctica’s inland is an unimaginable privilege skilled by just a few hundred vacationers per yr as in comparison with the 100,000 guests who discover Antarctica by cruise.

White Desert is the primary and solely luxurious operator taking friends into the forbidding and infrequently seen inside of Antarctica, while remaining dedicated to environmentally accountable journey. The firm was launched in 2006 by world-record breaking polar explorers Patrick Woodland and his spouse Roby, who love Antarctica a lot that they made it their life work to whisk folks (apart from scientists and explorers) to this extraordinary a part of the world. The solely operator to fly friends out of South Africa to this southernmost continent, White Desert went on to arrange its first seasonal luxurious camp, Whichaway, a group of cutting-edge pods with breathtaking views throughout the freshwater lakes of the Schirmacher Oasis, 12 years in the past. The lodge turned a magnet for explorers, and two different camps have opened since, Wolf’s Fang and Echo. Echo is the newest and most luxurious addition to the White Desert assortment, whereas Wolf’s Fang – situated near Echo – is the corporate’s journey camp.

Getting to Echo Camp is an exciting journey journey by itself, as White Desert flies its visitor in an opulent and cozy approach to Antarctica. The flights are operated in privately chartered jets – both a Gulfstream G550 or an Airbus A340 – with White Desert’s workers members accompanying the friends all the way in which from Cape Town to Antarctica, a journey which takes round 5 hours. Both planes have huge oval home windows, which provide unimaginable views of the icebergs of the Southern Ocean. The final a part of the flight is extraordinarily spectacular as the large plane slowly descends over the magical panorama on its approach to Wolf’s Fang runway, a blue ice runway which is privately operated by White Desert and which takes 22 hours to be groomed and ready. After touching down on the ice, friends are whisked away to Echo Camp by an Arctic truck (a 15 min experience), the place they’re handled to a welcome cocktail with 10,000 yr outdated ice. I’ve revealed a separate journey report in regards to the flight expertise onboard the non-public A430 right here.

Sitting in quiet solitude, Echo Camp enjoys a breathtaking location amidst the uncooked fantastic thing about the Antarctican wilderness. Set on a large glacier (“white desert”), the expansive views from the camp are unrivalled as the positioning is surrounded by a few of the most spectacular nunatak mountain ranges on the planet (nunataks are peaks, ridges or hills of bedrock protruding from the floor of a glacier). This location lends itself to a few of the extra adventurous actions together with mountaineering, mountaineering, and abseiling (extra on that beneath). The space wherein the lodge is situated was found by a Norwegian expedition in 1930, claimed by Norway in 1939, and declared a dependency of that nation in 1949. Named in honour of the then Norwegian queen, the area is completely located for exploring the inside of the continent. Several nations function science analysis bases within the territory, and White Desert makes use of its operations infrastructure to assist many of those groups, transporting round 150 scientists every year.

Inspired by astronauts, the trendy eco-camp encompasses a futuristic design, extra harking back to a spacecraft than a lodge. In reality, the camp’s identify was derived from Star Wars – a nod to the ability established by the Rebel Alliance within the cult basic’s second episode. There are six bed room pavilions – referred to as ‘sky pods – which are crafted from composite fiberglass and solar heated for comfort. Four of the space-inspired sky pods are designed for two guests while the two outer and larger sky pods each have two bedrooms. With interiors featuring retro space-age detailing and luxurious furnishings, each pod has a double bed, compact sitting area and separate en-suite bathroom with wash basin and a ‘double toilet’ (one for solids and one for liquids). Honeycomb roof detailing and curvilinear lights add a refined intergalactic aesthetic, whereas floor-to-ceiling window panels command panoramic views of the dramatic and moonlike panorama past. Original pictures taken from the International Space Station (ISS) by former Commander, White Desert visitor and retired astronaut, colonel Terry Virts are featured in every pod.

Echo’s central hub, referred to as ‘Cosmos’, is comprised of 4 separate pods, all linked by tunnels that resemble a docking station to a spaceship. Inside, these pods aren’t any much less futuristic, with huge, curved home windows that carry the panorama of Antarctica inside. Each pod has a unique identify, reflecting its performance:
- Inside the ‘Observatory’, padded partitions encircle a fragile Art Deco bar with lounge space, the place serves as a gathering place for friends previous to dinner. The observatory’s eye-catcher is an Anthony James artwork sculpture, which glows like an enormous energy supply. Titled 60″ Rectified Truncated Cuboctahedron (Solar Black), the three dimensional Pythagorean geometric sculpture is made with cutting-edge know-how and centuries-old craft.
- The ‘Refueling Station’ is Echo’s futuristic tackle a eating room. Here, breakfast, lunch and dinners are served round a big communal desk. Expert cooks – who’re busy within the trendy kitchen subsequent door – create bespoke menus crafted from the best elements. The meals and wine primarily draw on the perfect that Cape Town and the Winelands have to supply. The fashion of the menu is subtle with out being pretentious.
- The ‘Decompression chamber’ homes a library, trendy lounge space and a daybed, which permits for some napping beneath a cashmere blanket.
- The ‘Decontamination Chamber’ options two bathe cubicles with altering room, two full rest room amenities and a central double vainness space (Charlotte Rys toiletries are offered).

Echo Camp hosts a most of 12 friends at a time, so White Desert tailors the experiences to be as relaxed or as adrenalin-fueled because the friends want (both individually or as a gaggle). The wide selection of actions within the rapid environment of the camp embrace fats biking or cross nation snowboarding over a specifically groomed six mile (10 km) monitor; climbs to a nunatak, a mountain summit penetrating an ice cap; 4X4 Arctic truck driving and abseiling down frozen cliffs. Trips away from the camp will also be added together with a 2.5 hour flight to Atka Bay to look at the 28,000 robust Emperor Penguin colony, the celebs of the transferring documentary “March of the Penguins.” Even extra bold is an add-on following the journey to the penguin colony to the South Pole, a seven hour flight together with a cease on a polar plateau to refuel and an opportunity to stroll across the huge wilderness earlier than winding up on the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, the bottom level on earth. All actions are led by UIAGM-qualified excessive mountain guides and skilled polar explorers – a lot of whom maintain world data for his or her achievements – in a ratio of 1 information for each 4 friends.

Protecting – and provoking the long run stewardship of – Antarctica’s distinctive surroundings has all the time been on the coronary heart of White Desert’s goal and the corporate believes that accountable tourism is a real drive for good and helps Sir David Attenborough’s stance on the transformative energy of wilderness journey: “No one will protect what they don’t care about, and no one will care about what they have never experienced”. Here are six key sustainability tasks that White Desert has launched to attenuate its impression on the seventh Continent:
- Operated to the strictest environmental requirements, White Desert’s camps in Antarctica – Whichaway, Echo and Wolf’s Fang – are all non permanent eco-camps moderately than accommodations and haven’t any everlasting infrastructure, to allow them to be overhauled, upgraded or eliminated with out leaving a hint.
- Over the subsequent two years, White Desert goals to exchange all Jet A-1 gasoline it makes use of for its flights to, from and inside Antarctica by Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). SAF is produced from waste oils and fat by an revolutionary course of that considerably reduces lifecycle carbon emissions, creating an 80 p.c smaller carbon footprint in comparison with conventional Jet A-1 gasoline.
- White Desert offsets all its flights, actions and tasks to make sure that it achieves net-zero greenhouse gasoline emissions. The firm sponsors a well-established tree planting undertaking within the Amazon rainforest and can also be exploring sustainability alternatives nearer to its dwelling in South Africa, particularly seagrass meadow regeneration tasks.
- White Desert is working to remove single-use plastics, and all different waste is shipped again to South Africa for recycling or accountable disposal. All soaps, detergents and cleansing brokers are biodegradable.
- Partnering with California-based Arctica Solar, White Desert makes use of photo voltaic air heaters to heat the pods. This cutting-edge know-how permits it to attenuate its dependency on fossil gasoline.
- White Desert is a supporter of and contributor to the scientific neighborhood of Antarctica by its science logistics program.

CONS & THINGS TO KNOW

Guests must be versatile relating to their precise journey dates as flights will be introduced ahead or delayed as a result of climate situations – one thing that may, and does occur. White Desert has a group of meteorologists in Cape Town that decide the perfect days to fly to/from Antarctica as there must be visible situations to land in Antarctica and low winds to take care of security. It’s the principle purpose why friends are required to reach in Cape Town two days previous to their scheduled flight and stay for no less than two nights after their scheduled return, as the precise timing of the flight is completely depending on the prevailing climate in Antarctica. For instance, in my case, the flight to Antarctica was pulled ahead by a day.

Traveling to Antarctica with White Desert will not be low-cost and ranges from $14,500 USD for a day journey to $104,000 USD for an eight-night program per individual. While that is an extraordinary excessive charge, think about that White Desert’s operations is a monumental logistical endeavor. Managing the camp throughout its brief season – from the tip of November to the start of February – requires a extremely educated group of 120 workers members together with pilots, camp managers, flight operations crew, runway upkeep crew, communications specialists, luxurious hospitality workers, cooks, polar guides, medical doctors and extra. Also think about {that a} can of Coke, by the point it makes its approach to the camp in Antarctica, has gathered a landed value of $36 USD.

The climate in Antarctica will be extremely variable and situations can change shortly. This implies that actions and flights will be delayed or rescheduled on the final minute. Although uncommon, the climate in Antarctica will be excessive to the purpose that it’s prohibitive to organise actions exterior the camp. At Echo, the ambient temperature is often between -5°C to -8°C (23°F to 17°F) however excessive winds can dramatically decrease the temperature – referred to as ‘Wind Chill’. For these touring to the South Pole, you’re venturing onto the High Polar Plateau the place the ambient temperature drops considerably. You will expertise temperatures of roughly -25°C to -35°C (-13°F to -31°F).

Water is a valuable useful resource on the camp with all water being hand shoveled and melted in one of many camp’s industrial ice melters earlier than being transferred to the bathe facility. The camp workers subsequently asks that friends are conscious of their water consumption all through their keep on the continent, particularly whereas having a shower.

As the world’s most distant vacation vacation spot, you should handle your expectations by way of communications; in a phrase, it’s restricted. There isn’t any WiFi though friends can ship and obtain text-only emails by way of a White Desert iPad, which is obtainable within the lounge on the central pod. For voice calls in camp, you should purchase cellphone credit score and use one of many satellite tv for pc telephones in camp. T

Echo is as distant as its will get and you’re actually 5 flying hours away from civilization, a thought which some vacationers won’t discover very comforting in case a well being difficulty arises. However, White Desert has three certified medical medical doctors on workers, one situated in every of our foremost camps (Echo, Whichaway and Wolf’s Fang Runway). Guides and different workers members have additionally obtained medical coaching starting from primary to superior. A completely stocked medical equipment is obtainable in every camp in addition to cell kits for excursions and in a single day journeys. There are additionally a lot of native nationwide stations close by which will be accessed for emergency medical remedy.

MY VERDICT

Location: 10/10
Design: 10/10
Pool: n/a
Rooms: 10/10
Food: 10/10
Breakfast: 10/10
Spa: n/a
Service: 10/10
Value for cash: 10/10
Overall expertise: distinctive 10/10

TIPS FOR FUTURE GUESTS & SAVE MONEY

Save cash: learn right here my suggestions for getting the perfect deal at a luxurious lodge like Echo Camp by White Desert in Antarctica (and/or obtain many free perks).

Read my suggestions for making ready your journey in time.

BEST TIME TO VISIT

When you journey to Antarctica’s majestic indoors with White Desert (from South Africa), the season is even shorter: mid-November to early February. The months of December and January are the one months wherein you can too take elements in White Desert’s excursions to the emperor pinguins and the legendary South Pole. Click right here for my detailed on-line journey information of Antarctica.

HOW TO GET THERE

Echo Camp by White Desert in Antarctica can solely be reached by non-public jet from Cape Town. Guests fly from Cape Town International in South Africa to Wolf’s Fang runway in Antarctica, a 5 hour flight which passes into the Antarctic Circle and the continual daylight that solely Earth’s highest latitudes expertise. Owners of personal jets could select to make use of their very own plane. T

PHOTOS

Below is a choice of my pictures of Echo Camp by White Desert in Antarctica. To view extra pictures (together with breakfast, lunch and dinner), click on right here.