Half Moon Island is home to several thousand chinstrap penguins, as well as cormorants, terns and the notoriously territorial skuas, who will divebomb anyone who gets too close to their nests! There are also fantastic views of mountainous Livingston Island.

The Antarctic Sound is a 37-mile channel that separates the Joinville Island group from the Antarctic Peninsula. Prepare to be amazed as you sail among vast icebergs that have broken free from the Larsen Ice Shelf, and look out for wildlife including Gentoo penguins and whales.

Part of the South Shetland archipelago, Deception Island is a flooded volcanic caldera that forms one of the largest natural harbours in the world. The island was once a whaling station, and it’s also an active volcano - the British Antarctic Survey base here was abandoned in 1969 following an eruption.

The rocky slopes of Cuverville Island provide a home for some 6,500 pairs of gentoo penguins, the largest colony on the Antarctic Peninsula. Other bird species nesting on the island include skuas, southern giant petrels and Antarctic shags.

Neko Harbour, situated on the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, is a spectacular bay surrounded by glaciers that regularly calve into the icy waters. Gentoo penguins and Weddell seals are a common sight here, and the only sign of human activity is a small unmanned refuge hut belonging to Argentina.

Port Lockroy was the site of the first permanent British base in the Antarctic, established in 1944 as part of a wartime mission known as Operation Tabarin. Today the former ‘Base A’ houses a museum and souvenir shop, as well as the world’s most southerly post office, which means you can send a postcard home from Antarctica!

Located at the southern end of the Lemaire Channel, Pléneau Island is the site of some spectacular iceberg scenery, and is also home to species including Gentoo penguins, Antarctic terns, south polar skuas and southern elephant seals.

Surrounded by notoriously treacherous waters and battered by gale force winds known as the Furious Fifties, Cape Horn is the dramatic southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. This is the point where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans meet, watched over by a lonely lighthouse.

Puerto Williams has the feel of a true frontier town, situated on windswept Navarino Island facing out across the Beagle Channel. The surrounding mountains offer a spectacular backdrop for hiking and kayaking, while to the south lies the infamous Drake Passage and, beyond that, the frozen continent of Antarctica.

Puerto Natales, situated at the southern end of the Chilean Fjords, is a major tourism hub for southern Patagonia. Formerly a fishing port, the town is now the gateway to the Torres del Paine National Park, a spectacular landscape of granite peaks, grassy steppes and azure lakes, populated by guanacos, condors, pumas and more.

Rugged and unspoilt Chiloé, situated at the southern end of Chile’s Lake District, is a unique and culturally distinct island that stands apart from the rest of the country. The main town, Castro, is notable for its colourful waterfront homes on stilts (known as palafitos), and is the gateway to the dense forests and rolling hills of the island interior.