Planning your next holidays? Why not try Antarctica!

The Antarctic as a tourist destination is yet to make its mark in the minds of the wanderlust, but the idea is slowly catching up and for people who are willing to explore the virgin beauty of the "Ice Continent", it is just another holiday season away!

The Antarctic as a tourist destination is yet to make its mark in the minds of the wanderlust, but the idea is slowly catching up and for people who are willing to explore the virgin beauty of the "Ice Continent" it is just another holiday season away!

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Difficult to believe, but on an average Antarctica gets around 40,000 tourists every year!

In 2002, the Popats from Mumbai became the first family from India to set their foot on the continent. According to Urmi Popat, a prominent Mumbai-based architect and the author of a book on her experiences in Antarctica, the trip was "breathtaking."

"It transcended all my hopes - none of the books you read, photos and movie clippings you see, prepare you for actually being there in the most divine and beautiful landscape of the world. The sheer proportions and astounding beauty of Earth's least touched continent is still sinking in even after more than two years of my visit," says Urmi.

The Antarctic tourism began in the late 1950s but it was in the last decade of the last century that the "White Continent" caught the imagination of western travellers who had grown up reading the exploits of Robert Scott, Ernest Shackleton and others.

Antarctica has been claimed by many countries but few countries disagree on the importance of protecting the natural beauty of the continent.