Nature & Wildlife
British explorer and Royal Navy officer Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole on January 17, 1912. A hundred years later, on January 17, 2012, in honor of this historic adventure, the National Geographic Society exhibited some rare photos of the expedition, taken by Herbert Ponting.
Conservation
Cute, adorable animals are often used to garner support for environmental causes in places that are remote. After all, it’s hard to have concern for an area that is at the opposite end of the Earth from where you live and for which you have no plans to ever see.
Conservation
There are twice as many emperor penguins in Antarctica than previously thought, stated the National Science Foundation in mid April. That’s certainly good news, as concerns about the effects of global warming on penguin colonies rise.
Antarctica & Arctic
Big dreams of exploration were not uncommon in the late 1800s and early 1900s. But one explorer may have taken such aspirations to the next level: in 1895, at a London conference on polar exploration, a Swedish engineer named Salomon August Andree declared his intention to reach the North Pole via hot-air balloon.
Travel Tales
Ever since the explorers of old used oral storytelling, flyers and published journals to spread word of streets lined with gold, fountains of youth or rich silks and spices, people have been using mass media to motivate others to go on adventures.
Videos
Sea monsters are the stuff of thrilling fiction. From Jules Verne’s 1870 book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea to James Cameron’s 1989 movie The Abyss, tales of what creatures lurk in our oceans have captured our rapt attentions for more than a hundred years.
Conservation
In 1951, Kirk Douglas starred in a B movie titled The Big Carnival (originally released as Ace in the Hole). I saw it as a kid, many years later, when the trend was to play old movies on TV on Saturday afternoons.
Videos
When National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen jumped in the waters off Antarctica to photograph a leopard seal, he never expected her to play the perfect host—and offer him a snack. The huge seal began to bring him food: live penguins. When he didn’t partake, she brought him different fare—weak and dead ones.
News & More
Explorers’ Corner makes Outside magazine’s Top Trips list again! Check out their high praise for our Antarctica Sea Kayaking expedition — adventure travel that lives up to the name.
Nature & Wildlife
Follow along with science journalist Susan Moran as she gets an earful from an elephant seal, learns to tell penguins apart, and takes an ocean swim — without a dry suit! — surrounded by floating chunks of ice off the Antarctic Peninsula.
Travel Tales
It’s now the end of November, and soon we’ll be ushering in another new year. On December 31—as if everyone in the nation suddenly got a job at Houston’s Johnson Space Center—we’ll all begin counting backwards from 10.
News & More
When the Carnival cruise ship Splendor was towed into the San Diego Harbor late last week after being stranded off the coast of Mexico by an engine fire, many news reporters and bloggers commented that the 3,299 passengers and 1,167 crew had endured an “adventure at sea.”
