Antarctica is on the top of everyone’s bucket list these days as people spend tens of thousands of dollars to check out the world’s southernmost frozen continent (read: bragging rights). But have you ever wondered what it would be like to actually live there?
While there is no native population on Antarctica, there are 40 permanent research stations, with an average of 1,000 people living there year-round (around 25 people per station), braving harsh winds and an inhuman cold that once, in July 1983, dipped below 128 degrees Fahrenheit. All in the name of science.
This time of year — our summer, their winter — there is sunlight for only three hours a day, and it’s like being on the moon, and just as isolated.
As Antarctica is so difficult to get to, once you arrive, you can’t leave — until the next ship/airdrop comes six to eight months later. You are completely isolated from February to October, when the cold and the dark make flights too dangerous to attempt.
