Leandi Pretorius

With three camps in the interior of the continent, White Desert has been pioneering luxury Antarctic travel for over 20 years. Most people who reach Antarctica see it from the deck of a cruise ship. Fewer than 800 a year ever reach the interior. That's the world we operate in. After a five-and-a-half-hour flight from Cape Town, our private plane lands on an airstrip of blue glacial ice, where we run three luxury camps built where almost no one has stood. Getting people there safely and comfortably, every season, is one of the hardest logistics problems in travel. Our fuel and vehicles are shipped months ahead and driven hundreds of kilometres across crevasse fields. Our chefs cook a full season of meals in Cape Town before anyone arrives. We operate Wolf's Fang, the only private-jet runway in Antarctica. And our guides and pilots are among the best professionals in their field on the planet — which is why we've kept a near-perfect safety record across two decades. The same capability that carries our guests also supports science. Each year, we fly over 250 scientists to research bases across the interior. We've been carbon neutral since 2007 and were the first to trial Sustainable Aviation Fuel on the continent. Every camp is built to be fully removed, leaving only a minor, transitory trace. The White Desert Foundation extends our environmental responsibility through three areas: supporting science, investing in blue carbon, and education. Founded by polar explorer Patrick Woodhead, White Desert employs over 150 people from 18 nationalities, working from Cape Town and on the ice through the Antarctic season. In 2025 we moved beyond the polar world for the first time with Dr Jones — journeys to some of Earth's least-explored places aboard a fully restored 1940s DC-3. If you would like to learn more, please get in touch.