Antarctica represented a genuine unknown for all of them. Rebecca had never envisioned it for herself, and bringing a child to one of the most remote places on Earth introduced a new layer of uncertainty. Would Violet be bored? Restless? “One of my major concerns was that it would be wasted on Violet and that I would spend a lot of time trying to entertain her when she was confined to a ship,” Rebecca says.
Those concerns turned out to be unfounded.
Plan for a multi-day journey before you even board
Getting to Antarctica is an expedition in itself. The Rowleys flew out of Salt Lake City two days ahead of schedule, concerned about potential TSA delays tied to a threatened government shutdown. They spent an unexpected day in Atlanta, then boarded an overnight flight to Santiago, Chile, a country they had never visited and didn’t want to skip.
They built in three extra days in Santiago before joining their Lindblad-National Geographic expedition group. That buffer allowed them to explore the Chilean capital, make a day trip to the coastal cities of Valparaiso and Vina del Mar, and visit a resort in Portillo. It also helped ease the transition across time zones. The trade-off was packing complexity: they needed clothing for eighty-degree Santiago heat and Antarctic temperatures simultaneously.
From Santiago, the group took a chartered flight to Ushuaia, Argentina, followed by a guided bus tour through Tierra del Fuego National Park and a catamaran cruise through the Beagle Channel. By the time the family boarded their ship, the Lindblad-National Geographic Resolution, they had already been traveling for nearly a week.
What Antarctica actually feels like the first time you step ashore
Nothing quite prepared Rebecca for the moment they first went ashore. “Utah has a lot of snow and so I didn’t expect walking on snowy paths to be exciting or even feel like something new,” she says. But Antarctica isn’t Utah. It isn’t anywhere. The icebergs, the porpoising penguins, the whale spouts visible from the deck—the sensory experience accumulated quickly into something overwhelming.
On the first shore expedition, the family hiked to a peak overlooking the ship and walked to a small penguin colony. Partway up the trail, three penguins waddled past, entirely unbothered by the humans who stepped aside for them, and then belly-slid into the freezing water. From the summit, Rebecca looked out at the Resolution surrounded by icy peaks and watched small Zodiac boats ferrying expedition groups to shore. “I’ve been to over 60 countries, but I don’t think I have ever felt so much like a visitor in a place and so out of my element,” she says. “It was exhilarating to be so far from home and to realize how isolated and small we were compared to Antarctic landscape around us.”