Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another SLG meetup, your host, Alvaro, to bring you another successful and interesting guest in the luxury space. Now for this, we're going to be flying all the way to Antarctica, which you know, in this amazing summer, what if I've ever had a way to refresh yourself, to talk about Antarctica? And not just that, but we're going to have the founder and CEO Patrick Woodhead of the company, White Desert Antarctica. They offer some of the most unique luxurious experiences.
In fact, they've been pioneering when it comes to luxury experiences in Antarctica. And basically you go on a private charter all the way to the Antarctica, stay at one of their unique camps and get to enjoy a carbon neutral experience, which will blow your mind. I mean, talk about redefining luxury. So excited about having Patrick with us today and to hear more about the story and all the incredible experiences that they're offering.
There he is, the man himself, Patrick, what's going on my friend? How you doing? I'm good, I'm good. I'm in Cape Town in South Africa, I was winter, but it's finally stopped raining.
So being English, I'm kind of now allergic to the rain. So I came to, came to Africa to try and avoid it, but it's called up with me somehow. Listen, you brought that UK to you. So, I'm not going to say that.
But listen, Patrick, it's such a pleasure to have you here with us today. And how exciting it is to talk about what you guys are doing. I mean, White Desert Antarctica, pioneering in luxury in Antarctica, what you guys are doing is something that is unheard of. And I just want to take this opportunity to take it on to you to tell us a little bit about what the company is and the story behind because it's very incredible.
Thank you. Well, it started a long time ago. So I was in 2004. We did an expedition where we ski 2000 kilometers across Antarctica.
So we did this world record breaking immense skis for the interior of Antarctica, only 11 people had ever crossed Antarctica. So like more people had stood on the moon at that stage. And while it was a really tough expedition and a proper polar trip, what we really learned was the interior of Antarctica, the actual interior of the continent was incredibly beautiful. And you could go to Antarctica with just on cruise ships.
And so you could kind of touch the side of Antarctica just that little bit, but we love the interior. We love the deep interior. Now here we are, four-power explorers, starving to death and freezing cold and all that. So we basically thought, OK, let's envisage the most beautiful luxury we can't ever imagine.
So in our heads, we had white linen and amazing food and wine and warmth and all this stuff. So we went to every single detail as a sort of wonderful joyous exercise. And then over 18 years, we made that a reality and we made these incredible camps in the into Antarctica. You can fly in on a Gulfstream private jets or on our Airbus.
And then we've designed a space age buzz in Buzz Aldrin inspired camp or like an old school polar explorer camp. So yeah, we got a lot going on. I mean, talking about the law, you're mind the way. One beautiful story and how amazing is to see that all those dreams became a reality.
And now more people have to experience that. Yeah, in the old days to get into the interior of Antarctica, you had to be either a scientist or a polar explorer. And we wanted to change that and have pretty much anyone could go. So I mean, my children have been in Antarctica.
We've had, as I said, just before Buzz Aldrin, the astronaut come. He was 83, I think, when he came into Antarctica. So while it's really expensive to come where we are because the logistics are so crazy, it is accessible. Almost anybody could come from a physical point of view.
Right. That is one of its kind. This is something that it's really fine in luxury because every time that you think of like a luxury experience, you think of like, OK, you go on a nice cruise. You go on this and that good weather this, but to go to the Antarctica in the conditions that you guys are offering it is just incredible.
Now, I got to tell you, I see this new camp, the Echo, right? Because as coming from a real estate background, I love anything that has to do with the real estate and you guys have come up with this cargo neutral, like this unique type of luxurious camp. Tell us a little bit about the Echo and how it all came into reality because it's not easy to put that out there. So, so Echo was a big departure from our other camps because the other camps kind of they came from old polar explorer, brass, leather, chunky knit we've played for that kind of atmosphere.
And when we were staring at some of the mountains just near the runway, they are three kilometers high of sheer rock and they rise like spikes out of the ground. And it's so bizarre that a friend said this looks like a service with a moon. So we thought, OK, well, let's redesign this instead of going old world explorer. Let's go totally futuristic.
So we met with the designers for the camp and everything is bespoke. So every single element of the camp was built here in Cape Town, often revolutionary stuff. And it's all forward looking. It's kind of like the Millennium Falcon fused with a boutique hotel and we wanted it to be exactly that.
So space like a home dome of a lunar camp because that's what the landscape looks like. And the other big part about it is I wanted huge windows because the windows are this sort of connection you have to the outside the whole time. So you can be in your bed literally looking through these floor to ceiling windows with this incredible landscape in front of you and you always feel connected with that landscape. And at the same time inside the home dome, which is where we've got like we had fun with it, like the shower room.
It's called the decontamination zone. The lounge is called the decompression chamber because it is like that and everything is got this sort of, as I say, very modern star wars feel to it. And so it was just too much fun building the camp. I got asked you, like out of everything that you guys are putting together, right from the experiences, the camp, what's the hardest thing?
Because the logistics must be very difficult. The logistics are crazy difficult and then trying to do the logistics in a very responsible way from an environmental perspective is really difficult. So, you know, the challenges we face, we have to be able to dismantle every single thing in Antarctica. So when we build a camp, we can't have any foundations with concrete because if we pack it up, we need to leave without a trace.
So we've got a design pods that can withstand the winter wind, which is where no one's in Antarctica and it's terrifyingly high winds. We have to do all that and we're not allowed to basically anchor into the ground using concrete. So they have all these challenges. I mean, a can of Coke is $38.6 for us to bring it to which way camp.
So it's the most expensive can of Coke on Earth. Our camp, we fly to the South Pole, which has got four guys that hang out there on like a refueling depot for the plane. The nearest neighbor to those guys is the International Space Station 400 kilometers above their heads. Those are their nearest neighbors.
So we've got this crazy logistics that only could be in Antarctica. It's just insane. Like what does somebody expect out of this experience? How long does it take?
What are some of the highlights of it? Sure. So we like to take people in Antarctica for seven days, seven to eight days. And you can do a shorter trip, which is like a day trip in Antarctica for three hours and you get to touch and see the real Antarctica, but it's three hours.
And I think that's something like $16,000 for the main trip, which is where we take people to the lowest point on Earth, the geographic South Pole. This is still 2023, a really hard place to get to where there is no more East, South or West. You can walk around the planet in a single couple of paces. You know, this is still a very hard place to get to.
That's the main sort of signature part of our seven day trip. And then on top of that, we also visit an incredible and and propanguene colony. So and propanguene, as many people see March of the penguins, we have 20 something thousand penguins there. They're completely, completely unafraid of humans that have never been hunted and they are just beautiful animals.
And what the chicks have done to survive that winter and adults. So this whole reproductive process is the only penguins that stay in Antarctica during the winter. They're figured out a way to do it and the trials and tribulations they have to go through. And then we see them early in the season because we can fly there and it's kind of like this seminal wildlife event.
It's like seeing the migration of the beast in terms of like, you know, just the very zenet that wildlife, beauty and attraction. But there's also other stuff which is unique to where we are like we go into these ice tunnels. They are 200 meters long of iridescent blue ice tunnels that you can't believe that the colors you're seeing and how surreal it is. We do fun stuff like fat biking and zit lining and we hike up these amazing lunatacs.
So the whole landscape is this incredible playgrounds that we can enjoy and have fun in. But there's also serious stuff like we've got really serious, half of white desert. We also do all the logistics for the science spaces, many of the science spaces. So actually there's a huge interaction with our tourists learning about the science that goes on in Antarctica.
Learning about all these different drilling projects in terms of ice core sampling for our climate to look at climate change research. There's all these cutting edge scientific programs that our clients get to learn about and understand about what Antarctica is important. So there's a whole rather than just having fun, which it is fun. There's a whole back story about our clients being ambassadors for this incredible continent.
I wanted to ask you about something that for all the dreamers out there, right? Because a lot of people have certain dreams and then they don't do nothing about it. You are someone that was doing an expedition, you were with your friends, came up with an idea and you were living your dream. So what would you recommend or suggest to those that have those wild ideas going on in their brain to take that first step forward?
But I think it was Shiller who said stay true to the dreams that I use. And I think that that's really important that you keep those dreams and you act on them. And then like anything that's worthwhile, it requires usually vast amounts of tenacity and hard work and you must never give up and you must go for it. And there's often risk and disappointments and there's often times when you feel you can't go on.
But that's part of achieving something really special and there are so many dreams out there and so many people need to act on them. So I think the one writing thing is to go for it. You have to put yourself out there because critics are unimportant. It's not the critic that counts.
No one cares what a critic thinks about it. People care about the people that are in the arena but they're doing things. And that's the most important thing. So get into the arena and go do stuff.
Something that we always ask and I know you talked a little bit about it but they were at luxury. Right? They had so many different meanings but why is it really for you? You're asking a guy that voluntarily sleeps in a tent on ice in the middle of Antarctica and eats dehydrated food for a living.
What is luxury? I don't know what they're best qualified to do that. I mean people coin it as luxury as time, luxury as freedom, luxury as all these different things. I think that our guests and our clients these days are far more sophisticated in their version of luxury.
And what I mean by that is that they can go to a five star resort and they can do all of that and they can have the best Egyptian cotton sheets. That's all fine but it's possible and you can do that kind of anytime. I think that our version of what we offer in Antarctica is luxury is all the stuff we've been discussing, that disconnect, that sense of other worldliness, that true sense of adventure and escape. Those are, you know, luxury is defined by something that's unique and special and makes you feel good, I guess.
So I think that all of the things that we offer do exactly that but in abundance. Take the box. Yes, 100%. I mean, I love it.
I love it. Look, I'm an adventurer myself, you know, so everything that comes to combining luxury with uniqueness and these kinds of experiences is just out of my alley. So that's why it was such a pleasure to have you here today to learn more about the story behind the brand and also to get to know you. So thank you again Patrick.
It's a pleasure. I'm not sure there's anything else that you would like to add to our listeners. Not off the top of my head but I'm just hopefully they will come and see us in Antarctica or at least come and learn about Antarctica and click on the videos and photos because it is this. I'm just after 20 years of going down there.
It's still every time I get off the plane, I kiss the ground. Every time I arrive in Antarctica, I feel that I'm somewhere very special and it's usually this this on the maps of the world. You just see the fingers of Antarctica sort of underneath on this sort of mercantor protection and people don't really think about Antarctica much. And suddenly by living and breathing and going there, it's dominated my life and it's such a special place and it's such a place that captures your imagination.
So learn more about Antarctica and I hope people come and visit us as well. Well, you've heard it from the man himself, Patrick. Please go and follow them and check what you're doing because it's very unique and as Patrick said, something that is worth experiencing. So thanks again, Patrick.
Really appreciate your time. Hopefully the rain will pass and keep down and soon we'll be back in Antarctica. Thank you. And thanks again for everybody tuning in today.
We hope you enjoyed it. And remember, embrace it's beautiful success in life. My name is Alvaro and I'll see you next time.