This week’s dream: Antarctic adventure

Antarctica "defies even the best-laid plans", says Ian Henderson in the Sunday Telegraph. On a continent that does not have a single proper town or airport, suffers from the very harshest weather and is cut off from the rest of the world by a notoriously tempestuous sea, you can forget about travel schedules. You might spend days waiting for flights in freezing air-craft hangars, or sitting out ice storms at sea – but the rewards are

worth it. There's a "genuine sense of adventure" and the place is both "endlessly fascinating" and "utterly ravishing" – "an otherworldly vision of sea, ice and cloud-wrapped mountains in a minimalist palette of blues and greys".

A new air service can now get you to a "genuine Antarctic base" within 24 hours. From there, travel by sea rather than land is encouraged as it causes less environmental damage, but regular forays ashore are still possible. Penguin colonies are among the main attractions: stepping off your Zodiac