Robert Michael Poole has written for a wide variety of magazines, newspaper and new media sources such as: AP, CNN, MTV, Interview, the Wall Street Journal, and global inflight travel magazines. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of Culture+Travel and Head of Asia at Blouin Artinfo.
Back to paradise to shoot with Maldives Tourism & More
In a world that is increasingly interconnected, where remote corners have been explored and exploited, this year I found myself yearning for a place that defies the conventions of modern travel, somewhere authentic and, quite literally, far away from it all. So I set out on a journey to the remotest island on Earth.
Delighted to see my work used throughout the new book “The Ocean Club” published by Assouline and written by James Reginato of Vanity Fair.
The Ocean Club in The Bahamas is one of the globe’s most storied and iconic hotels, and the location of two James Bond movies. Now its story is told through photos including many taken over two shoots by myself in a new book published by Assouline.
With the children at home until at least March and cabin fever setting in, The Sunday Telegraph reveals the world's finest adults-only escapes for when we can travel again. Go on - you deserve it!
Of course, we all love children. Especially on holiday. Their happy, sun-tanned faces, Their excited squeals. Their wide-eyed wonder. But… maybe after weeks and weeks of lockdown, the hours and hours of home schooling and the general claustrophobia, we could all do with a break.
A week or two of absence might make our overstretched hearts grow a little fonder. If ever there was a year for an adults-only holiday, this is surely it.
Long-haul journeys might not feel like a realistic expectation for 2020, but when it comes to planning our next getaways, one Vogue staffer tells what it meant for her to grow up in one of the Caribbean’s most beautiful destinations.
Step out of bed into a warm turquoise sea
I get wary when a beach in the Caribbean is described as having “pink” sand, yet here I am holding a handful of grains and shell fragments that are without a doubt roseate…
Inspired by French-Vietnamese Director Tran Anh Hung’s masterpiece "The Vertical Ray of the Sun," my works have appeared across international media and are available upon request or assignment.
Chinstrap Penguins 🐧
Instantly recognizable by the black band that gives them their name, chinstrap penguins are the most abundant penguin in the Antarctic, where they gather in massive breeding colonies.
After spending the winter north of the sea ice, chinstraps return in late October or early November to their nest sites, usually with the same breeding partners. These colonies are on the rocky, ice-free coasts of the South Sandwich Islands, South Shetland Islands, and Antarctic continent like here in Hydrurga Rocks.
The sheer number of birds in the colonies is astounding. The largest colony, on the uninhabited South Sandwich island of Zavodovski, hosts some 1.2 million breeding pairs. Here we got to walk amongst a much smaller colony of a few thousand.
With @swanhelleniccruises
———————————
#natgeo #lonelyplanet #BBCTravel #natgeotravel #natgeoyourshot #culturetrip #Antarctic #cruise #Antarctica #antarcticadventure #antarcticcruise #penguins #swanhellenic #chinstrappenguin
The Antarctic Peninsula 🐧
The area that makes up the Antarctic Peninsula, Scotia Arc, the South Georgia Islands and the South Sandwich Islands is one of the most productive parts of the Southern Ocean.
Stretching out over 1,500 kilometers towards the tip of South America, the Antarctic Peninsula is the northernmost part of the Antarctic continent.
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current provides a strong natural barrier, which results in these waters harboring a high percentage of diverse and endemic marine plants and animals.
An estimated 75% of the krill population surrounding Antarctica resides in this area, supporting large breeding populations of penguins, seals, and whales.
This region is of particular interest to scientists and conservationists because Antarctica is one of the fastest warming places on Earth, and glacier retreat on the continent is causing environmental shifts that could significantly affect coastal seafloor ecosystems.
With @swanhelleniccruises
———————————
#natgeo #lonelyplanet #BBCTravel #natgeotravel #natgeoyourshot #culturetrip #Antarctic #cruise #Antarctica #antarcticadventure #antarcticcruise #penguins #swanhellenic #gentoo #gentoopenguins
Meeting the Gentoos 🐧
With flamboyant red-orange beaks, white-feather caps, and peach-colored feet, gentoo penguins stand out against their drab, rock-strewn Antarctic habitat.
These charismatic waddlers, who populate the Antarctic Peninsula and numerous islands around the frozen continent, are the penguin world’s third largest members, reaching a height of 30 inches and a weight of 12 pounds.
Gentoos are partial to ice-free areas, including coastal plains, sheltered valleys, and cliffs. They gather in colonies of breeding pairs that can number from a few dozen to many thousands.
Gentoo numbers are increasing on the Antarctic Peninsula but have plummeted in some of their island enclaves, possibly due to local pollution or disrupted fisheries. They are protected by the Antarctic Treaty of 1959 and received near threatened status on the IUCN Red List in 2007.
At Elephant Point on Livingston Island, part of the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica with @swanhelleniccruises
———————————
#natgeo #lonelyplanet #BBCTravel #natgeotravel #natgeoyourshot #culturetrip #Antarctic #cruise #Antarctica #antarcticadventure #antarcticcruise #penguins #swanhellenic #gentoo #gentoopenguins
Welcome to Antarctica!
And so begins an epic 20-day expedition from Argentina to Antarctica, across the Atlantic Ocean to South Africa, stopping on two of the most extraordinary islands in the world - South Georgia and Tristan da Cunha!
The first stop on this unique route, sailed just once a year by @swanhelleniccruises, is Portal Point, a narrow, rocky point on the northeast of the Reclus Peninsula off Graham Land, Antarctica.
It was named by British explorers as it formed part of the “gateway” for the route to the main Antarctic Plateau.
With @swanhelleniccruises
———————————
#natgeo #lonelyplanet #BBCTravel #natgeotravel #natgeoyourshot #culturetrip #Antarctic #cruise #Antarctica #antarcticadventure #antarcticcruise #penguins #swanhellenic #portalpoint
Welcome to Elephant Point, an ice-free promontory projecting 2 km into Bransfield Strait at the south extreme of the west half of Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica.
This spot is named for the Elephant seals, the largest carnivores in the world, weighing up to 5,000 kilograms (5 tonnes / 11,000 lb).
Elephant seals take their name from the large proboscis of the adult male (bull), reminiscent of an elephant`s trunk, and considered a secondary sexual characteristic.
Males weigh ten times the size of females and often tend to groups of 10 or more. They spend the majority of their life (90%) underwater in search of food, and can cover 100 kilometres (60 miles) a day. On land they can be aggressive and can move fast, so we kept our distance.
You can find them in South Georgia and Falklands, and on the coasts of New Zealand, Tasmania, South Africa, and Argentina in the Peninsula Valdés. In southern Chile, there is a small colony of 120 animals at Jackson Bay.
With @swanhelleniccruises
———————————
#natgeo #lonelyplanet #BBCTravel #natgeotravel #natgeoyourshot #culturetrip #Antarctic #cruise #Antarctica #antarcticadventure #antarcticcruise #penguins #swanhellenic
Because our world map is horizontal and 2D, even though our world is a sphere, Antarctica tends to get left off, just a white line at the bottom.
But Antarctica is an entire continent, 40% larger than the entire area of Europe, or about the size of the US and Mexico combined - just with no current permanent living human bases.
98% of Antarctica is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet, averaging at least 1.6 km thick. That ice sheet accounts for 90 percent of Earth`s total ice volume and 70 percent of its entire fresh water.
It houses enough water to raise global sea level by 200 ft.
It is also home to at least 138 volcanoes including the most active, Deception Island - and we will sail right in to that one!
With @swanhelleniccruises
———————————
#natgeo #lonelyplanet #BBCTravel #natgeotravel #natgeoyourshot #culturetrip #Antarctic #cruise #Antarctica #antarcticadventure #antarcticcruise #penguins #swanhellenic
Delighted to see my work used throughout the new book “The Ocean Club” published by @assouline and written by @jamesnreginato of @vanityfair
@fsoceanclub in The Bahamas is one of the globe’s most storied and iconic hotels, and the location of two James Bond movies.
Featuring the remains of a twelfth-century Franciscan monastery from France, terraced gardens in the style of Versailles, the hotel opened in 1962 with a gala attended by Zsa Zsa Gabor and European’s most glamorous prince and princesses.
It has hosted the Beatles, a career-making performance by Whitney Houston, the wedding of Cindy Crawford and was the backdrop for 1965’s Thunderball, starring Sean Connery and 2006’s Casino Royale starring Daniel Craig.
Thanks too to the wonderful models @marcy_yu, @caytostyle and @jessicafrancesthom 😃❤️
Find the book here: https://eu.assouline.com/products/the-ocean-club?variant=40244518256739
@fourseasons #bahamas #thebahamas #assouline #fourseasons #sharemyfs #oceanclub
Penguins don’t like to live and breed on ice, so are usually found on the 2% of Antarctica that remains rocky, like this location, small enough to have escaped attention from most visitors to Antarctica - Hydrurga Rocks.
Living here are a huge colony of thousands of Chinstrap Penguins and you can see why they get their name! The narrow black band under its head makes it appear as if it were wearing a black helmet.
The first recorded sightings of the rocks were in aerial surveys in 1956 and they were named by the British in 1960 for the Leopard seal, Hydrurga leptonyx which also live here.
Hydruga Rocks lies to the east of Two Hummock Island in the Palmer Archipelago of the Antarctic Peninsula. The main island in the group rises to 25 meters above sea level with a barren and rocky summit.
With @swanhelleniccruises
———————————
#natgeo #lonelyplanet #BBCTravel #natgeotravel #natgeoyourshot #culturetrip #Antarctic #cruise #Antarctica #antarcticadventure #antarcticcruise #penguins #swanhellenic #HydrurgaRocks
For 44 years, satellites have helped scientists track how much ice is floating on the ocean around Antarctica’s 18,000km coastline. But there has never been less ice around the continent than there was in February this year, just before my expedition.
In February 2023, sea ice around Antarctica reached the lowest extent ever observed since the start of the satellite record in 1979.
On February 21, 2023 it was 1.79 million square kilometers (691,000 square miles). That`s 130,000 square kilometers (50,000 square miles) below the previous record-low reached on February 25, 2022—a difference that equates to an area about the size of New York state.
The fate of Antarctica – especially the ice on land – is important because the continent holds enough ice to raise sea levels by many metres if it was to melt.
The ice on land covers about 98% of the Antarctic continent and is the largest single mass of ice on Earth, with an average thickness of over 2 kilometers.
So while the disappearing sea ice - seen in gorgeous icebergs like this - won’t change sea levels much. The clear signs are that the continent is warming up, and if the land ice melts too, the impact will be huge.
When the Antarctic ice warms up for summer, thousands of icebergs break free from the sea ice, sculpted beautifully by the wind and ocean waves.
With @swanhelleniccruises and @bennberkeley
———————————
#natgeo #lonelyplanet #BBCTravel #natgeotravel #natgeoyourshot #culturetrip #Antarctic #cruise #Antarctica #antarcticadventure #antarcticcruise #penguins #swanhellenic
Sleeptight Weddell Seal 🦭
Weddell Seals are the most southern ranging mammal to permanently inhabit our earth. Incredibly placid and sedentary animals, they can be approached without any apparent stress when on land.
They spend much of their time below the Antarctic ice and do not migrate, commonly found within a few miles of their birthplace. They find cracks in the ice to breathe during summer, and use their teeth to make holes for breathing under water in winter. They can hold their breathe for 1h 20 mins.
That means they have few predators, because their under-ice environment is safe from air-breathing predators such as killer whales and leopard seals, while sharks don’t come as far south as Antarctica.
Both adult males and females are about 3 metres long and weigh around 400–500 kg and it is believed there are 500,000 to 1 million of them remaining.
With @swanhelleniccruises
———————————
#natgeo #lonelyplanet #BBCTravel #natgeotravel #natgeoyourshot #culturetrip #Antarctic #cruise #Antarctica #antarcticadventure #antarcticcruise #penguins #swanhellenic #weddellseal #seal
When the Antarctic ice warms up for summer, thousands of icebergs break free from the sea ice, sculpted beautifully by the wind and ocean waves.
With @swanhelleniccruises and @bennberkeley
———————————
#natgeo #lonelyplanet #BBCTravel #natgeotravel #natgeoyourshot #culturetrip #Antarctic #cruise #Antarctica #antarcticadventure #antarcticcruise #penguins #swanhellenic
So what do you need to be ready for Antarctica?
It’s easier than you think! Firstly, head to the southern tip of South America, where all the ships leave from either Ushuaia, Argentina, or Puerto Montt, Chile.
Ships come broadly in two styles;
Cruise Liners carrying anywhere from 300 to 1,000s of passengers, cheaper, but you will simply sail by Antartica and not walk on land.
Expedition ships, more expensive, smaller, they sail closer to shore and make regular landings, usually 2 a day.
The expedition ships like the extraordinary @swanhelleniccruises I joined had just over 40 passengers and 150+ crew, they provide you with almost everything - parkas, boots, waterproof backpacks….
You just need to bring thermals if you get cold easy, though Antartica isn’t as cold as it appears.
Oh, and you cant bring a drone unless you have an IAATO license, but do bring a camera and long lenses!
———————————
#natgeo #lonelyplanet #BBCTravel #natgeotravel #natgeoyourshot #culturetrip #Antarctic #cruise #Antarctica #antarcticadventure #antarcticcruise #penguins #swanhellenic
Welcome to Antarctica!
And so begins an epic 20-day expedition from Argentina to Antarctica, across the Atlantic Ocean to South Africa, stopping on two of the most extraordinary islands in the world - South Georgia and Tristan da Cunha!
The first stop on this unique route, sailed just once a year by @swanhelleniccruises, is Portal Point, a narrow, rocky point on the northeast of the Reclus Peninsula off Graham Land, Antarctica.
It was named by British explorers as it formed part of the “gateway” for the route to the main Antarctic Plateau.
In 1956, a refuge hut was established here, known as Cape Reclus Refuge. In 1996, the hut was removed and is now in the Falklands Island Museum (I went to see it there, more on Falklands later!)
Over the next couple of weeks I’ll share stories from the journey, the animals and people along the way, visit the most isolated human civilization on earth and tips of how to do it yourself!
———————————
#natgeo #lonelyplanet #BBCTravel #natgeotravel #natgeoyourshot #culturetrip #Antarctic #cruise #Antarctica #antarcticadventure #antarcticcruise #penguins #swanhellenic
Mocho-Choshuenco 🌋🇨🇱
Welcome to Mocho-Choshuenco, a glacier covered compound stratovolcano in the Andes of Los Ríos Region, Chile. Here at the top is a 4km wide caldera covered in snow and providing water to the lands below.
It looks over the wonderful @huilohuilo_reservabiologica, a private for profit natural reserve and ecotourism area in the lakes region of southern Chile.
Covering 100,000 hectares, Huilo Huilo preserves a Temperate Rainforests, a scarce eco-system that represents 0.9% of all the forests in the world.
There are 250 km (156 miles) of paths and trails throughout the reserve with hundreds of tree species, untouched beaches, river sources, springs and lagoons, bird refuges and native wildlife.
———————————
#natgeo #lonelyplanet #BBCTravel #natgeotravel #natgeoyourshot #culturetrip #chile #atacama #volcano #beautifulhotels #travelawesome #lagoon #MochoChoshuenco #huilohuilo
Early morning clouds with Llaima volcano in the distance at Samadhi Eco Resort.
Founder in 2016 after 20 years of dreaming and planning by two life-long best friends the 123-acre spiritual oasis encompasses an enchanting world of natural beauty and authentic living in the south of Chile with 3 self-catering shipping container cabins and 6 repurposed cement tube rooms available for guests.
———————————
#natgeo #lonelyplanet #BBCTravel #natgeotravel #natgeoyourshot #culturetrip #chile #volcano #supervolcano #conguillio
Cherry Blossoms are in bloom for all again in 2023 especially if you @visit_hamamatsu
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
This year my no.1 country in the world, and home for many years, Japan is open!
And there is no better time to be there than during sakura - cherry blossom season.
If you’re looking to avoid the crowds in Toko and Kyoto, then I suggest Hamamatsu. Set around a river with a mountain backdrop, Hamamatsu is home to Lake Hamana with its onsen resorts and Hamamatsu Castle, built by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1570.
This super photo is by my friend @kyoko1903 who is an expert of showcasing the best of Japan! It’s taken at Akihasan Hongu Akiha Shrine in Shizuoka prefecture.
To win a bunch of gifts from Hamamatsu check out @visit_hamamatsu where they are running a giveaway from February 17-26.
#hamamatsu #Japan #sakura #cherryblossoms #ad #paidad
Conguillio National Parque 🌋
The beauty of the Andes for me surround the incredible volcanoes, and it’s hard to been the scene at @parquecongullio
The most active and largest volcano in the park is Llaima with a peak of 10,630 feet (3,240 m).
The snow-capped cone-shaped volcano is stunning from every angle, including its river of lava, and the lakes it has created over millennia are just part of the astounding wilderness.
The araucaria forest provides a canopy that has earned the park the nickname, "The Umbrellas" and the vegetation has created an ecosystem to support diverse wildlife such as pumas, kodkod, chillas, condors, and eagles!
You can drive around it in a loop and trust me, you’ll want to make many stops!
———————————
#natgeo #lonelyplanet #BBCTravel #natgeotravel #natgeoyourshot #culturetrip #chile #volcano #supervolcano #conguillio #Waterfall #caldera #huilohuilo
Atacama Desert, Chile 🇨🇱
Careful where you drive!
Chile`s Atacama Desert, the driest non-polar desert on Earth, stretches across 600-mile (1,000 kilometers) tract of land wedged between the coastal Cordillera de la Costa mountain range and the Andes Mountains.
The Atacama is the oldest desert on Earth and has experienced semi-arid conditions for roughly 150 million years.
That’s created an alluring world of sand and rock baked by the forcefulness of an unfettered sun.
It’s actually also a very colourful place with salt formations and grasslands in vibrant colours - I’ll share more of that soon - these shots though are taken on the roads east of San Pedro where Bolivia, Argentina and Chile all meet.
With @ms.vera.tan
———————————
#natgeo #lonelyplanet #BBCTravel #natgeotravel #natgeoyourshot #culturetrip #chile #atacama #atacamadesert #desert #roadtrip
Volcan Mocho Choshuenco 🌋
Peaking through the clouds, this is the summit of the glacier covered stratovolcano of Mocho-Choshuenco in the Andes of Los Ríos, Chile.
It is made of the twin volcanoes Choshuenco in the northwest and the Mocho in the southeast.
Sadly, due to global warming, the ice cap has shrunk in area by over 40% of its 28.4 km2 (11.0 sq mi) since 1976.
The last reported eruption is supposed to have occurred on June 16, 1936 and you can now hike it to the peak by joining the team at @huilohuilo_reservabiologica who know the trails!
———————————
#natgeo #lonelyplanet #BBCTravel #natgeotravel #natgeoyourshot #culturetrip #chile #volcano #supervolcano #Choshuenco #Waterfall #caldera #huilohuilo
Volcan Mocho Choshuenco Triple Falls
Discovering waterfalls while hiking is of course always a joy. Finding three on the same hike means the hike is something special.
That all 3 stand on top of one another… now that’s wow.
This combination comes from the glacier covered stratovolcano of Mocho-Choshuenco in the Andes of Los Ríos, Chile.
You can find it by joining the team at @huilohuilo_reservabiologica who know the trails!
———————————
#natgeo #lonelyplanet #BBCTravel #natgeotravel #natgeoyourshot #culturetrip #chile #volcano #supervolcano #Waterfall #caldera #huilohuilo
