The arrangement of unusual vacation getaways has become a booming business in travel jaded America. Americans are tired of going to the usual spots like Mexico and Monte Carlo. Veteran cruise takers are tired of sailing the Caribbean. They're now searching for locations that the average tourist probably wouldn't think of.And what would be more exotic, and give you more exiting stories to tell family and friends, than a unique, memorable excursion to Antarctica?

Nowadays, getting there is actually not very hard. You need several days' travel time — a day-long plane trip from New York followed by a three-day boat trip from the tip of South America, embarking from the small port of Ushuala. Because the US Navy has a presence in Antarctica, many tourists feel more safe. The US, and several other countries, has had active bases on Antarctica since 1957. The U.S. navy's presence here, can certainly come in handy, in the event that ice traps the tourists' vessel, or an individual slips into an ice crevasse, although the American navy men, themselves, don't appear to be that enthusiastic about the increase in vacationers visiting the frozen continent. Detailed affordable antarctica tours resources can be found there.

What can a person do in Antarctica? There is photography and wild life study. You'll see seals, penguins, whales and seabirds. Visit an active volcano and see the smoke escape the 12,000 foot ice cone. This sight alone easily trumps other volcanoes as tourist fare.

It takes a special kind of tourist who's willing to shell out the $5,000 it takes to reach Antartica by plane and boat.Tourists are more often than not doctors or scientists. More and more married couples are traveling there. And believe it or not, a grandmother or two has been brave enough to make the trek as well.Interest in Antarctica is on the increase, according to a travel agency spokesperson. Thank heavens for advancement in travel, according to the spokesman, because now everyone could see Antarctica. It was no longer reserved for the few hearty explorers who?d made it there in the past.

A spokesperson for the United StatesNavy states that the US government only asks that Antarctic tourists meet certain safety standards, rely on themselves and follow the international agreements for conservation and preservation of the continent. Frankly, this is of concern to environmentalists and researchers in Antarctica. They can all too easily foresee Antarctica as tourist trap, with troops of unruly "Ugly American" tourists running roughshod over the terrain, terrifying the indigenous wildlife, littering everywhere and even leaving graffiti on the few monuments of historical interest that exist in Antarctica. Expert resources on antarctic tours are located on that site.

The Camp Royds hut is a perfect example of this. Canned food and clothing from a famous expedition in 1907 is still there, in the exact same location and condition as the men left it. Sitting on the table, is the newspaper of a big European city, open to the page that one of these adventurers had been reading.

One often sees tourists scrambling up the side of the small promontory to snap photos of the arresting Antartic Mountain Range, an enduring sentinel of the South Pole, 900 miles in the distance. Historically, the Pole hasn't been very photogenic; when the explorers got there all they saw was an endless expanse of flat ice. The "new" version of the South Pole is a real pole, complete with barber's stripes in orange and blue, and crowned by what looks like a silver disco ball.