Travel has been a thread running through my life for more than twenty five years, yet I never imagined that it would carry me all the way to Antarctica.
The frozen continent was not even on my horizon, certainly not after my husband’s accident, which left him physically disabled and dependent on a walker.
Since the year 2017 we had resumed traveling carefully, choosing destinations where accessibility was possible. But Antarctica felt unthinkable.
Until one unexpected lunch changed everything. In the year 2019 we were on a Seabourn cruise to Australia and New Zealand. It was a smaller ship with a little over three hundred passengers, which allowed for more personal interactions with the performers and speakers on board.
At one lunch we were seated with a scientist who had just presented on Antarctica. Half curious and half doubtful, I asked him, “Do you think someone like my husband, who uses a walker, could go to Antarctica?” His reply was simple and unforgettable: “We have taken a man with no legs.” That line stayed with me.
Then came the period of COVID, and like everyone else we paused our journeys. But the seed had been planted. In late 2024, after a trip to India, the Antarctica dream resurfaced. I began calling tour companies in the month of November, just weeks before the peak Southern Hemisphere season. Accessible cabins are extremely limited, and I told myself that without one, we would not go.
When Abercrombie and Kent Cruise Company said yes, an accessible cabin was available, I did not hesitate. We booked immediately. Our journey began on December 18/2024.
From Dallas we flew to Buenos Aires, where we spent two lively nights soaking in tango rhythms and the city’s European charm. A short flight then took us to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, known as the end of the earth. There we boarded our expedition ship.
The voyage carried us first to the Falkland Islands, then to the wildlife paradise of South Georgia, and finally, to the great white continent itself.
Each stop revealed another world: vast glaciers, towering icebergs, colonies of penguins stretching as far as the eye could see, seals basking on the shores, and skies filled with seabirds. The stillness of Antarctica was unlike anything I had ever experienced, majestic, humbling, and almost sacred.
I even took the polar plunge, leaping into the freezing Antarctic waters, a thrill etched forever in memory.
The return was not without challenge. The infamous Drake Passage reminded us why sailors call it one of the roughest seas in the world. The ship rocked so fiercely that at night I needed the crew’s assistance to help my husband to the bathroom. Yet even those moments became part of the adventure, proof that travel tests us as much as it delights us.
On January 9th/2025, we returned to Ushuaia, then to Buenos Aires, and finally home to Dallas. We carried with us not just photographs of ice and wildlife, but the quiet awareness that we had touched the edge of the world.
This journey was born from a single conversation over lunch. It grew into one of the most meaningful experiences of our lives, a reminder that sometimes the most impossible dreams are only waiting for us to ask, “Is it possible?”
Soulful Nishi 