Antarctica: the best journey in the world

If there is one minor pitfall of being a travel writer, it is this. Whenever you tell a bunch of people what you do, invariably someone will ask: ‘Where’s the best place you’ve ever been?’

I struggled to answer until I got on a special new boat called the Greg Mortimer, operated by a Australian tour company called Aurora – and headed for Antarctica.

We sailed south out of Ushuaia, in Tierra del Fuego, and crossed the Drake Passage. After three days I saw my first Antarctic iceberg. I’d observed icebergs before, in Iceland and Greenland, so I knew already that they could be striking, poetic, impressive. But this was on a grander scale entirely. It looked like an aircraft carrier made out of ethereal blue crystal. As I stood on the deck gazing at it, I became aware that half the boat was doing the same – standing to attention, worshipfully regarding this thing.