I am a blogger and I went to Antarctica for content, I must say this honestly. I thought: “Antarctica, extreme sports, penguins, glaciers - this is just gold for YouTube.” And, honestly, I was not mistaken, the content came out fire. But that was, like, 10% of that experience.
The first thing I noticed was that the Drake Passage really turned me off. I thought I was a cool kid, traveling to Thailand, to Morocco, but here on the first night I lay in the cabin and thought: “why did I do this?” The waves are such that everything in the cabin flies. But then it passed, and then it was easier.
When I stepped on deck for the first time and saw Antarctica, that was the moment when I realized that all my 4K cameras and drones weren’t showing it all. Reality is 100 times larger in scale than on the screen. I stood there for a long time, without a camera, without a phone, just watching.
It was weird because I usually shoot everything for content. But here on the first day I didn’t take out my camera at all, because it was simply impossible to be distracted by the technology. Then I dealt with psychology and started filming, but for the first hours I was just... there, that's all.
Of course, I did polar swimming. In the video he looks super cool: I jump into the icy water, howl, jump out, like I’m a hero. In reality, it was a minute: “OOH, GOD, HOW COLD,” then I couldn’t feel my legs for another minute, then they helped me get out, and I spent an hour recovering in the cabin. But damn, it really looks like a lethal dose of adrenaline in the video, so yeah, it was worth it.
Kayaking among the ice is a completely different experience. This was real beauty. You sit in a kayak, there is ice all around, birds at the top, and you just glide through the water. I filmed on my phone, then on my camera, then I just forgot about filming and sat. It was powerful.
The crew, by the way, is very attentive to the environment. They really make sure that no one leaves trash or goes where they shouldn’t. At first I thought it was boring, but then I realized it was right. Animals live there, there is a fragile system there, and we are guests. Somehow, on a subconscious level, this made me reconsider my attitude towards garbage in general.
I met some cool people on board. There was a guy from New Zealand, a biologist girl from France, a family of tourists from Japan. We told each other about our countries, laughed, and it was really cool. I usually don’t communicate much when I travel, but here it somehow happened.
Cons: expensive, for a 22-year-old guy this is a lot of money. And I lost two memory cards somewhere between landings, so I have video memories, but not complete ones. And there is no connection there, so I couldn’t post stories until I got ashore. It was strange, I realized how dependent I am on the Internet.
But the main thing is that I went there as a blogger who wants content, and returned as a person who has seen Antarctica. And these are completely different things.
9 out of 10, subtracting one for losing the cards. But these are my mistakes, not the trips.
I am a blogger and I went to Antarctica for content, I must say this honestly. I thought: “Antarctica, extreme sports, penguins, glaciers - this is just gold for YouTube.” And, honestly, I was not mistaken, the content came out fire. But that was, like, 10% of that experience.
The first thing I noticed was that the Drake Passage really turned me off. I thought I was a cool kid, traveling to Thailand, to Morocco, but here on the first night I lay in the cabin and thought: “why did I do this?” The waves are such that everything in the cabin flies. But then it passed, and then it was easier.
When I stepped on deck for the first time and saw Antarctica, that was the moment when I realized that all my 4K cameras and drones weren’t showing it all. Reality is 100 times larger in scale than on the screen. I stood there for a long time, without a camera, without a phone, just watching.
It was weird because I usually shoot everything for content. But here on the first day I didn’t take out my camera at all, because it was simply impossible to be distracted by the technology. Then I dealt with psychology and started filming, but for the first hours I was just... there, that's all.
Of course, I did polar swimming. In the video he looks super cool: I jump into the icy water, howl, jump out, like I’m a hero. In reality, it was a minute: “OOH, GOD, HOW COLD,” then I couldn’t feel my legs for another minute, then they helped me get out, and I spent an hour recovering in the cabin. But damn, it really looks like a lethal dose of adrenaline in the video, so yeah, it was worth it.
Kayaking among the ice is a completely different experience. This was real beauty. You sit in a kayak, there is ice all around, birds at the top, and you just glide through the water. I filmed on my phone, then on my camera, then I just forgot about filming and sat. It was powerful.
The crew, by the way, is very attentive to the environment. They really make sure that no one leaves trash or goes where they shouldn’t. At first I thought it was boring, but then I realized it was right. Animals live there, there is a fragile system there, and we are guests. Somehow, on a subconscious level, this made me reconsider my attitude towards garbage in general.
I met some cool people on board. There was a guy from New Zealand, a biologist girl from France, a family of tourists from Japan. We told each other about our countries, laughed, and it was really cool. I usually don’t communicate much when I travel, but here it somehow happened.
Cons: expensive, for a 22-year-old guy this is a lot of money. And I lost two memory cards somewhere between landings, so I have video memories, but not complete ones. And there is no connection there, so I couldn’t post stories until I got ashore. It was strange, I realized how dependent I am on the Internet.
But the main thing is that I went there as a blogger who wants content, and returned as a person who has seen Antarctica. And these are completely different things.
9 out of 10, subtracting one for losing the cards. But these are my mistakes, not the trips.
