The greatest island on Earth for seeing wildlife up close

There’s nowhere like South Georgia, says Mark Stratton

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"One cannot be angry when one looks at a penguin," wrote the English essayist John Ruskin in 1860. And he was right.

Whether it was tears of joy or my eyes watering at the fishy pong of several hundred thousand king penguins shoehorned along St Andrews Bay beach, I was wreathed in smiles.

This was my fourth visit to the subantarctic British Overseas Territory of South Georgia. Not only is it the most intense wildlife-watching island on Earth, with millions of penguins and seals, and skies swirling with albatrosses, it’s also a paradigm for ecosystem recovery that offers a blueprint for how humanity might just protect global biodiversity via non-intervention. For any wildlife-lover considering a trip of a lifetime to Antarctica, I’d recommend the extra time and cost to include it in your voyage. Biologically, it’s like Antarctica on steroids.

The island lies two days sailing east of the Falkland Islands and two days north of Antarctica. Mountainous and glaciated, cascading meltwater streams incise surf-wracked beaches surrounded by a cold sea, rich with krill that is feasted upon by marine mammals.

It’s only reachable by expedition cruise vessel because there is no airport nor tourist accommodation ashore. Typical cruises to this region are 11-day voyages sailing back-and-forth between Ushuaia in southern Argentina to the Antarctic Peninsula, yet some vessels offer extended itineraries factoring in South Georgia and the Falklands. These less-frequent three-week epics are typically £4-5,000 more than a standalone Antarctic trip during the austral summer season (November-March).

Arriving from the Falklands, I begin a four-day traverse down South Georgia’s eastern coast onboard