With more than 100,000 annual visitors in 2024, Antarctica is becoming an increasingly popular tourist destination, but the environmental costs of traveling there may be too high.

Antarctica Glaciers and Photographers — Travelers and penguins. Luis Bartolomé Marcos. CC BY 4.0.

The subject of documentaries, expeditions, comic books and conspiracy theories, Antarctica has long loomed in our imaginations as a distant land whose seemingly permanent winter appears impenetrable and otherworldly. It’s no wonder, then, that as the Antarctic tourism industry grows, people are seizing the opportunity to visit this desolate haven for themselves. But what does this increasing number of human-wildlife interactions mean for the formerly untouched continent?

As the only continent with no native human population, Antarctica didn’t see human activity until the 20th century. Explorers from Britain, Norway and the United States all sought glory in Antarctica, each competing to make history as the first person to summit that peak or traverse that ice shelf. But the first non-scientific travelers or tourists didn’t make their way to Antarctica until the 1950s, when Argentina and Chile each sent citizens to the region to bolster their respective territorial claims. A decade later in 1966, Lars-Eric Lindblad led the first traveler expedition on the continent’s mainland. Three years after that, Lindblad established the first Antarctic cruise ship. Cruise ships subsequently became a regular presence on Antarctica’s coastline, to the point where in 1991 seven tour companies created the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators or IAATO to regulate travel — and travelers. However, even with all their precautions, the IAATO couldn’t anticipate that traveler levels would reach the high figures they’re at today. As environmental science professor Cassandra Brooks said, “IAATO is truly amazing in what they have accomplished, but it’s difficult to imagine how they will manage to control this burgeoning industry.”

British explorer Ernest Shackleton on Antarctica. CC0.

To put Antarctica’s travel boom into context: 26,650 travelers visited Antarctica during the 2004 tourist season, while 2014 saw 36,702 visitors. But in 2024, another decade later, that figure more than tripled as 122,000 people visited Antarctica. This 457% increase in tourism over 20 years owes to the fact that travelers now have more options than before to reach the continent once deemed impossibly remote. With every new cruise line, yacht tour and helicopter group, travel to Antarctica becomes increasingly normalized and mainstream (though not necessarily more financially accessible, as trips can cost anywhere from $6000 to $40,000 per person). On these voyages, travelers can kayak through the glassy blue peninsula or even scuba dive beneath icebergs with the krill and Adelie penguins. Travelers may also have the opportunity to cross-country ski to the South Pole or camp in snow holes beneath the polar stars, depending on the size of the vessel they arrived in. Vessels carrying more than 500 passengers are prohibited from deboarding onto the mainland, meaning not all tour groups who come to Antarctica are allowed to make landings on the continent. But even if travelers never technically step foot on Antarctica, they still leave a carbon footprint in their wake.

Cruiseship in Antarctica — A cruise ship in the Antarctic Peninsula. Gordon Leggett. CC BY 4.0.

“Average per-passenger CO₂ emissions for an Antarctic vacation are 4.14 tons — which is just about the same amount of carbon pollution that the average human produces in an entire year,” Jen Rose Smith wrote. However, this mass influx of carbon dioxide is less the result of travelers’ individual actions than it is of the vehicles they arrive on. For example, as John Bartlett said, “in the most visited areas, researchers have found that the snow has a higher concentration of black carbon from ship exhausts.” This pollutant makes snow dark and causes it to absorb sunlight rather than reflect it, which ultimately accelerates melt rates. Indeed, “Antarctica is losing six times as much ice as it did in the 1970s,” Melissa Wiley reports. Snow loss in Antarctica is detrimental — not only does it destroy polar wildlife habitats, but the run-off water raises sea levels and, subsequently, the risk of shoreline erosion and coastal flooding. When this cumulative impact is split up between each of Antarctica’s visitors, “each tourist arrival accounts for an average of 83 tons of snow loss,” per Smith.

Beyond their carbon footprint, travelers’ literal footprints can be directly harmful too: “In some areas tourists have traipsed over delicate mosses and plants,” Bartlett writes. Travelers are also known to litter and even harm the sea animals they come across on their hikes. Ecologists also cite that with tourists comes the increased risk of environmental disasters — such as fuel leaks from cruise ships — and the introduction of invasive species. As Paige McClanahan points out, be it “nonnative crabs or mussels clinging to the hull of a [cruise] ship” or “foreign plant seeds stuck in the lining of a tourist’s parka,” invasive species are yet another traveler-induced stressor that can disrupt Antarctica’s fragile ecosystem.

Antarctic tourism. Butterfly Voyages. CC BY 3.0.

“We at Poseidon Expeditions are honored to contribute to the preservation of the Arctic and Antarctic habitats and the Polar Ice Cap, and to help our passengers understand the importance of keeping the polar regions pristine for future generations,” cruise line Poseidon Expeditions said in their mission statement. Other Antarctic travel groups have pledged similarly, but it’s difficult to hold these companies and their customers to these promises because tourism to Antarctica is largely unregulated. As McClanahan writes, “Managing tourism is a tricky issue in this distant region where no individual government has the power to set the rules.” Because no singular government has sovereignty over Antarctica, the continent is governed by the Antarctic Treaty System, a series of international agreements that designate the continent a demilitarized scientific preserve. Although the treaty protects Antarctica’s wildlife from other human activities like mining, waste disposal and marine pollution, travel regulations are largely left to the tour operators themselves. “There aren’t a lot of hard rules governing tourism. It’s mostly voluntary, said Claire Christian, executive director of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition. “Right now, there is a lot of good will. But that’s not something you can guarantee.”

Travelers photographing penguins. Luis Bartolomé Marcos. CC BY 4.0.

The IAATO continues to advocate for Antarctic tourism, believing that trips are an important way to educate and convince people that the region’s beauty is worth protecting and preserving. However, the association also recognizes that so long as Antarctic travel continues to grow in popularity, they will have to reconsider their policy of self-regulation. Whether that means restricting the number of tour vessels allowed to land or “prosecut[ing] visitors for Antarctic misbehavior (penguin cuddling, for instance),” McClanahan notes that change may take a while to implement, if at all. But for now, the once-in-a-lifetime experiences that come with traveling to Antarctica are still being weighed against their harmful impacts — “such intangibles are the daily arithmetic of life in a warming world,” Smith writes. But if Antarctica’s trending popularity is any indication, environmental ethics aren’t likely to stop people from visiting.