We’re not sure what’s most extreme about the new glamping site in Antarctica from specialist operator White Desert. Is it the fact you’re camping in the interior of the world’s most inhospitable continent, or is it the price tag? At a cost of around €72,000 per person for eight nights in the Great White South, it might well be the latter.

Extreme glamping in Antarctica (white-desert.com)

Still, that’s not to downplay what an extreme holiday this would make. Most trips to Antarctica involve touching a toe to the Peninsula rather than penetrating the interior, with visitors spending nights back on board their expedition ship. But getting to the White Desert camp involves a 5.5-hour flight from Cape Town to the frozen continent’s north, and you’ll be living on Antarctica itself for the duration of your stay.

While the White Desert site has actually been around for ten years, it just underwent a refurbishment to make it more glamp than camp, and now features luxurious interiors with fur pelts, leather detailing and David de Rothschild’s Lost Explorer toiletries. Actually, this is starting to sound a bit cushy for a so-called extreme trip. If you’re made of sterner stuff, maybe consider one of these extreme holidays, where pampering is considered the preserve of squishy wimps.

Nothing says "holiday" like the Democratic Republic of Congo (Getty)

War Zone Tours

This “adventure travel” company does what it says on the tin – takes plucky visitors to war zones, in the company of “high risk environment guides”. Tours are bespoke, so you can decide just how extreme you want to go – “recommended” itineraries include Iraq, Sudan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. But if all that sounds a bit tame, you might want to enquire with Russian company Megapolis Kurort. Last year it was reported the outfit had applied to trademark its “Assad Tour”, taking tourists to the frontline in war-ravaged Syria. To be clear: we do not think this is a good idea. warzonetours.com

Hiking The Maze

Utah’s Canyonlands national park offers an incredible desert landscape of red rocks and canyons, but one place few visitors dare go here is The Maze. Aptly named, it’s a remote labyrinth of sandstone fins and identical-looking canyons, many of which come to dead-ends. Just getting to the damn thing is challenge enough – there’s 46 miles of dirt road leading to between six and nine hours of 4x4 driving before you can even start your hike. Park rangers warn merely reaching The Maze requires attentive map-reading: “GPS units frequently lead people astray,” the website warns. Only 2,000 people a year turn up to hike its tricky trails. nps.gov

Few dare to hike The Maze in Utah's Canyonlands (Mike Renlund/Flickr/CC BY 2.0)

Kayaking in Siberia

You probably think of Siberia as offering nothing but frigid wasteland, but this vast province also includes lush valleys, sprawling forests and churning rapids. Some of the most extreme kayaking on Earth can be had on its Bashkaus River, which drops 32 feet per mile for its 130-mile length. The few who make the epic journey here to paddle between deadly high gorge walls will, at the end of their efforts, be rewarded with a riverside memorial to six expert kayakers who died attempting the same route in 1976. two-blades.com

Diving with bull sharks in Beqa Lagoon

Forget cage diving; at Beqa Lagoon in Fiji, shark dives are cage-less and involve encounters with up to eight species, including two out of the world’s three deadliest, bulls and tigers. The Beqa Lagoon resort is even guaranteeing two or more tiger sharks with every dive, and says the biggest number of the species encountered on one dive was eight. If you’re still interested after that… well, you need help. The resort defends its feeding methods to attract sharks on educational grounds – read more about it to decide for yourself. beqalagoonresort.com

Racing up a mountain in Alaska