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Antarctica is often regarded as the Highest, Driest, Windiest, Coldest, Emptiest and Loneliest continent on Earth.

What it doesn’t get much press for is that it is arguably the most pristine, undisturbed, beautiful, dramatic, wild, dangerous and largely unchallenged continent as well. Whether you get there by means of employment with any one of the various scientific or governmental agencies, or if you get there by tour & cruise ship; Antarctica should be placed high up in the uppermost tiers of your life’s bucket list.

To inspire and perhaps motivate, we’ve collected a group of our best images and brought them here to Topline to share some of what helps to make up these lesser known qualities – including pics from the most recent trip to the Antarctic Peninsula.

You can find all these photos and more at Topline’s Flickr site, located here: Flickr.com

We’ve also uploaded our first video to Vimeo. You can go check out our space at Vimeo here: Vimeo.com

Antarctica is also a very, very big place. It’s landmass is roughly 2/3rds the size of the entire North American continent; or roughly 1 1/3 the size of Australia. That being the case, the Antarctic experience varies wildly from one place to the other – especially when comparing the coastal regions to the vast flat white expanses of the frigid and windy interior.

Whether lashed by fierce hurricane blizzards, “herbies” for short, or basking in the intense summer sun, the Antarctic coasts are a relative oasis for wildlife and typically the focus of most tour operations. They make great travel destinations if you can stand the cool temperatures and sometimes violent weather mood swings. Most often these trips are arranged by cruise ship operations and sometimes include on-shore excursions to penguin colonies, science stations and the like.

The interior of Antarctica is by contrast starkly uniform, bitterly cold and hardened by constant driving winds. The Antarctic Plateau is vast, covering most of the continent in massive layer of glacial ice that stretches from horizon to horizon to horizon – and much further beyond. The interior is most often the focus of science groups and expeditioneers since the environment, although harsh, is pristine and relatively untouched by human influence.

In each case however, there are deeply beautiful places to behold. Hopefully, these images bring you a sense of what’s possible in Antarctica and removes some of the mystery while amping up the intrigue.