![]() The collapse of the Soviet Union meant that adventure buffs could finally go visit these guys in Antarctica. As these ships were sold off at auctions, entrepreneurs in the polar tourism business began redeploying them to Antarctica, opening up, for the very first time, tourism to the world’s southernmost continent. ![]() As the country’s institutions unraveled, and member states declared independence, disruptions in funding from the central government meant that many institutions were unable to pay for the maintenance and upkeep of their considerable fleet of ice-strengthened, polar research ships-many of them belonging to the Russian Academy of Science. The Antarctic tourism business really ballooned in the 1990s, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Tourism to Antarctica Only Took Off After the Fall of the USSR “However, when they made that initial call to us, we happened to be in the early stages of planning the buildout of our new state-of-the-art expedition cruise ship, the Magellan Explorer, and it wasn’t long before we decided that there was a nice synergy between what Anytime Fitness was trying to do and our commitment to providing best-in-class facilities and services for our intrepid polar explorers,” added Contini. “Initially, when Anytime approached us, they just wanted to pick our brains and get some insights about the logistics and challenges of building a gym on the continent it was certainly a bold idea, but we’ve been operating in the Antarctic tourism business for a decade and a half, and we knew that actually setting up a physical structure on the continent would be a very complex-if not impossible-proposition given the maze of overlapping claims, treaties and conventions that govern Antarctica,” said Francesco Contini, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Antarctica21. ![]() And one of its unique features will be an onboard Anytime Fitness Center.Īntarctica21’s Magellan Explorer will be home to Anytime Fitness’ most chilly location. But’s there’s a catch: you will only be able to get a workout in while gazing out onto the Antarctic tundra during four months of the year.įrom November through March-the summer months in the Southern Hemisphere, when temperatures are more like Minneapolis in the winter than the harsh subzero temps that ravage the icy continent during the rest of the year-the Magellan Explorer, a brand new, majestic, 300-foot ice-strengthened, luxury cruise ship will be based off of Antarctica’s King George Island. ![]()
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