Things to see & do in South Georgia

Kilometre-long Prion Island floats just off the northeast coast of Georgia. Wandering albatrosses nest here, returning to breed after years at sea. Although the birds aren’t hard to spot (at around three metres, they have the largest wingspan on the planet), their numbers have been hit hard by longline fishing and plastic pollution. It’s worth noting that you can’t explore Prion Island between 20 November and 7 January to protect seals breeding on the landing beach.

The unlikely subject of the South Georgia’s best conservation success story? Rats and mice. These 18th-century stowaways have raided the ground nests of penguins, pipits and pintails for 250 years. But in 2018, the South Georgia Heritage Trust declared the island rodent free after a 10-year habitat restoration project.

The Antarctic whaling industry was a victim of its own success, with boats harpooning over 40,000 whales in one season in 1930. By the 1950s, humpbacks had almost been extinguished from the Antarctic. Over a couple of decades, fishing families filtered out of Grytviken, shrinking a population of almost 1,000 to a ghost town sunk under snow and ice.

These days, king penguins waddle the streets and elephant seals have taken up shop at abandoned whaling stations. The Whaling Manager’s House is now the South Georgia Museum, which traces the island’s history from Shackleton’s explorations to the 1982 Falklands conflict, covering a ton of natural history in between.