I have always wanted to go to Antarctica. I remember, when I was a boy picking through the pages of back-issue National Geographics, thinking that Antarctica was like another world, part of this one I was in, but also different. A continent of ice, flightless birds and intrepid explorers who died alone in the snow. Or, in the case of Shackleton and his crew, made it home to tell tales around the bar. It sounded amazing to me. Still does.

Seems I’m not the only one. More than 100,000 people are going to be visiting Antarctica this summer (it’s summer there now, right?), following in the footsteps of those explorers of yesteryear, but with guides and heated staterooms, the comforts of home but wilder, somehow.

What is an explorer, here in these years when every inch of the globe has been mapped and photographed? Does that word still have any meaning and if it does, what is it? Is it still exploring if 100,000 other folks are doing it right alongside you?

I still want to go to Antarctica, but there has to be another way.