Following the Equator

Friday Fun Fact: Drake's circumnavigation

Today is the 428th anniversary of
Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation of the globe.

On September 26, 1580, Drake and a crew of fewer than 60 men returned to Plymouth Harbor aboard the Golden Hind after a journey around the world that lasted 2 years, 9 months and 14 days. On this journey, Drake and his crew observed the Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica, although they did not pass through it.

A statue of Sir Francis Drake (above) stands at Plymouth Hoe in England to commemorate his historic feat.

Band abandons Antarctica gig

American rock band Fall Out Boy was thwarted in its attempt to be the premier globe-trotting rock band.

Fall Out Boy was forced to cancel a concert last week in Antarctica, which would have earned a spot in the Guinness Book of Records as the first band to play on all seven continents in less than nine months.

The band played a concert in Santiago, Chile, on March 23, but bad weather—and presumably not the falling chucks of continent— prevented the band from flying to Antarctica for its scheduled gig Friday at a gymnasium at Base Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva on King George Island.

Travel Tidbits: A conquering hero

One of the 20th century's greatest explorers, Sir Edmund Hillary, died January 10. He and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were the first known people to reach the top of Mount Everest.

Hillary and Norgay literally stood on top of the world on May 29, 1953, when they reached the summit of Mount Everest, 29,035 feet above sea level, the highest point on Earth. Of reaching the pinnacle moment, Hillary wrote:

"Another few weary steps and there was nothing above us but the sky. There was no false cornice, no final pinnacle. We were standing together on the summit. There was enough space for about six people. We had conquered Everest. … Awe, wonder, humility, pride, exaltation—these surely ought to be the confused emotions of the first men to stand on the highest peak on Earth, after so many others had failed."

Since then, more than 3,000 people have ascended Mount Everest, but Hillary—like Roald Amundsen reaching the South Pole in 1911, Charles Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic in 1927 and Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon in 1969—was the first. He devoted much of the rest of his life to assisting the mountain people of Nepal.

World Hum and Gadling both paid tribute to the man whom New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark called "a colossus." You also can read obituaries from the Associated Press and The New York Times. The New Zealand native was 88.

It's been awhile, so we have several other Travel Tidbits to catch up on:

Greetings from … Antarctica?

Our post a couple of weeks ago about Antarctica reminded me of a story from one of EF's great group leaders, Greg Holmes.

Greg, who teaches calculus at Granite Bay High School in California, showed me the ropes last year at Paris Orientation. (The highlight was our impromptu lunch on a bench in Versailles.) Greg, who takes a huge group of seniors to Europe every year, has a ton of great tales about his travels. His Antarctica story, though, is about his classroom. I asked him to tell it one more time:

Antarctica, anyone?

Antarctica stirs the emotions of explorers. Its remoteness and uncharted territory calls out to adventurers. Its icy, white expanse may be the last great frontier of land exploration on Earth.

But Antarctica is heating up—and I don't mean global warming.

More and more explorers, adventurers and plain-old tourists are making their way to Antarctica. Technically the world's largest desert, Antarctica is becoming a hotspot for the truly adventurous (and wealthy) tourists. A recent New York Times article cites the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat, which says that more than 35,000 tourists are expected to visit the continent next spring and summer. That's a 418 percent increase since 1992-93, when fewer than 7,000 tourists visited the White Continent.