How did you get down there?

Whenever I tell people I've been to Antarctica I'm usually met with the questions of how and why. "Was it to study abroad?" or "Oh, did you go do some science?" I always dread this question because the answer isn't a fun one. My dad died. One of the few times I've ever posted on TikTok, someone commented about being a nepo baby and it was daddy's money. I mean in a sense, sure but it just took a life insurance policy to get it.


I never had an interest in Antarctica or cruises. I haven't ever liked the cold and I still don't. I will never be a bird watcher and I never wanted to be a marine biologist like many kids did. I also never expected to get the call that my dad was found in his car on the side of the highway unresponsive by emergency responders late in the evening the previous night.

I was 18 and was six weeks into my freshman year at Colorado State University. It was October 2020 and like the rest of the planet, was having a whirlwind of a year. I had just gotten out of the small twin XL bed that my very new boyfriend, Aidan and I slept in. I had moved dorms the week before into a single after some not great experiences with my roommate. We were getting ready for a rare in-person class when I received the call from my grandparents that I needed to come to the hospital. Five days later, my dad was pronounced dead. 


I had gone to the hospital which was only an hour and a half from school the day I received the call to say my goodbyes. There was no hope that he would make a recovery from the unexpected aneurysm. Aidan was driven down by a friend and dropped off so he could drive me back to Fort Collins. After being official for a mere two weeks (and knowing each other for only four days more than that), he was meeting my mom and telling her he’d take care of me. We went back to Fort Collins where I was waiting to get a phone call from my family that he was gone.

My Dad and I circa 2010.

 

Fast forward a month or two, my birthday had passed and I received some money from his life insurance. It was enough to cover most of my schooling, rent for a year when I moved out of the dorms, and a little grief escape fund. I had never had that much money, not that it was a crazy large amount but I had gone to college with no money saved at all so it was game changing.


Originally, I wanted to buy land and build a cabin, but I was a bit naive at how far my money would go buying land in the mountains of Colorado, let alone building a cabin. I decided to change my focus to travel. I had been on a school trip to Europe the summer before my sophomore year of high school, and my dad had handmade me a leather cover for a journal for my trip. On the front, the stereotypical, wanderlust-inspiring John Muir quote "The mountains are calling, and I must go" was engraved. Additionally, my dad had been a photographer, and I kept all his gear. I was desperate for a way to escape the grief and focus on something else, and the trip seemed like the perfect option.


I didn’t know where I wanted to go, just that I wanted to go somewhere and somewhere that would be hard for me to go again. I had money to drop on a trip so why not go all out and the travel deals were pretty great seeing as the world had been completely locked down a few months prior. I decided I wanted to go by myself but since I didn’t have much international travel experience, I would join a group trip. Soon, my Google searches were littered with queries like, “cool places on Earth”, “COVID travel restriction map”, “travel photography destinations” but I was lost.

Aidan helping me search for some land.

 

To this day, I don’t know what prompted it but I searched “can you go to Antarctica?” and soon I was deep in the research of expedition cruises. My late night deep dives lead to learning about National Geographic trips partnered with Lindblad Expeditions and G-Adventures. Perfect. I could go to Antarctica, learn from biologists, geologists, and other researchers, and get mentorship with a real life Nat Geo photographer. This dream trip could be achieved in a shared cabin for the low, low price of $17,000. I wish I could remember the faces of Aidan or my Mom when I told them that I was going to Antarctica and spending almost a semester's tuition but I do remember that I didn’t care what they said, I was doing it.


It was booked and 10 months later, I was in a plane heading to Miami.

Checking out Brown Bluffs on the Antarctica Peninsula with my dads camera.