"The Antarctic Polar Circle" Top 5 Page for this destination Antarctica Off The Beaten Path Tip by globetrott

The Antarctic Polarcircle is a lot further south than 95% of all ships are sailing in the Antarctic waters. Mostly it is only on the itinerary of icebreakers like Kapitain Klebnikov and a few others. When you compare the distances to the pole, you may get quite easily with an ordinary cruiseship up to the northern icebarrier, about 800-1000 km from the Northpole, like I did many times, while I was working onboard of the cruiseship M/S Vistafjord.
While the northpole is just covered with rather flat ice that might totally melt in the nearer future, the southpole is covered by an "iceblock" that is held between various islands and it is more than 3000 meters high. very close to the south Pole there is a permanent american research-station.