From spotting polar bears in the Arctic to soaking up the timeless magnificence of Japanese onsens, here are some of Explore writers' favourite cold-weather travel moments.
Spot polar bears in Svalbard
By Alex Carlton
The news races around the 128 guests on board the Arctic expedition ship Ocean Adventurer faster than a guillemot diving for fish: "Polar bear!" We pull on our insulated yellow jackets and grab cameras and binoculars and race to the ship's deck to see her: a graceful female bear with muscles tensed and her eyes locked on a fur seal around 500 metres away. For at least an hour, we watch, barely daring to breathe as we wait for the world's largest terrestrial carnivore to make her move.
Finally, she breaks into a fierce gallop but the seal spots the danger in time and slips away into the ink-blue water. Seal one, polar bear nil.
A polar expedition cruise to the Svalbard-Spitsbergen archipelago, about 800 kilometres north of mainland Norway, is filled with moments of natural wonder just like this. One day, we watch an Arctic fox stalking a cliff edge for unwary puffin chicks. On another, the sea's surface is broken by the white, bobbing spherical heads of a pod of beluga whales. Some days are simply spent watching icebergs float eerily through the barren waters. And of course any of this could - and does - appear day or night, as the Arctic summertime means we're in the land of the midnight sun.
In total we see an incredible 23 polar bears on our epic 12-day Spitsbergen Explorer trip, though we never see one triumph over her would-be lunch. Better luck next time, bears.
How to do it: Quark Expeditions circumnavigate the Svalbard archipelago on their fleet of small-scale expedition vessels through the northern summer months between May and August. Departures leave from Helsinki, Finland. quarkexpeditions.com
Taking the plunge in Finland
By Michael Turtle
Normally you'd call it Dutch courage, but in the forest outside Helsinki, let's go with Finnish courage. I certainly need some, so I take another shot of vodka - partly to delay, partly to steel my body for what's coming. Outside it's dark and cold, but that's fine. It's the freezing bit I'm worried about.
Finland is famous for its saunas. Most homes have one, and there's even a sauna in the exclusive Finnair Lounge at Helsinki Airport. But nothing beats a wood and smoke sauna in the countryside like this one in Espoo, about 20 minutes' drive from the capital. On a wooden bench, sweat pouring from every pore, I embrace the heat even as I start to count down the minutes I can endure it. The benefits of a sauna, according to the Finns, includes relaxing the muscles and reducing stress. Hmmm... we'll see.
Because the sauna is just the warm-up (pun intended) to the venture outside, the fresh air directly on my skin. I shuffle along a wooden pier to the edge of a lake, frozen over and eerily quiet in the still black night, to a small hole cut in its icy cover. Pausing, I wonder if I really have to do this. Perhaps it's my philosophy of embracing local culture... or perhaps it's the vodka. Either way, I jump, down into the freezing water, the shock hitting me all over, until I quickly climb back up the ladder.
Body numb, but mind exhilarated. I'm ready to go again. And I do.
How to do it: Helsinki has a range of public saunas, including Loyly and Kulttuurisauna. For a nearby rural experience, there's Oittaa at Espoo.
When snow blankets Yellowstone
By Ute Junker
Red coat blazing against the white snow, the fox is stepping carefully, concentrating on what it can't see. Head tilting from one direction to the next, it is listening as voles and mice scurry beneath the snow layer where they spend the winter.
Suddenly it leaps high, pounces and emerges with its prey in its teeth. That's dinner done, then.
I didn't expect to see much wildlife on a winter trip to Yellowstone, the US's most famous national park. With metres of snow blanketing the ground, bears are curled up in hibernation, but it turns out plenty of other of animals are active. That includes the wolves, rarely spotted in summer, as well as coyotes, foxes and bison.
Other things that took my breath away: frozen waterfalls, trees decorated with lace-like frost, the warmth of hot mineral springs on a cold evening, the thrill of snowshoeing through a silent landscape.
I also gained an appreciation for the incredible number of geothermal features are contained in the park's one-million hectares. Those smoky geothermal plumes that rise from every corner of the landscape? They just don't exist during warmer months.
One more thing I discovered about exploring Yellowstone when the air is crisp: you avoid the crowds. The park can receive four million visitors in summer and traffic is often gridlocked. During our trip we saw only a handful of other people, usually at a distance.
One of the world's great landscapes all to yourself? I can't think of anything better.
How to do it: Tauck offers an eight-day Wonderland: Yellowstone in Winter tour traversing the park from north to south. tauck.com
Crossing the Atlantic
By Louise Goldsbury
Like a warm bubble floating across the sea, Queen Victoria protects her guests from the chilling winds blowing off the North Atlantic Ocean in January. This atypical cruise from the UK to the US identifies as transatlantic: seven nights crossing between the two countries with no ports of call along the way. Ensconced within the ship, more than 1600 passengers have a week to mingle, dine, dance, drink, read, rest and learn. I'm engrossed for hours of daily lectures by Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves, and Mike Reiss, writer and producer of The Simpsons. I dress up for the black-tie gala night, dress down for the solo travellers coffee and wear a dressing gown from my cabin to the spa for a massage.
The Cunard experience can also be a time-travelling mind-trick back to the golden age of cruising, where people have afternoon tea served by white-gloved waiters while a harpist plays classical music, before attending waltz, tango and foxtrot lessons in a grand ballroom. With no contact with the outside world (if you stay offline), it is easy to forget it's 2023 or that land even exists beyond the endless horizon. When we sail in past the Statue of Liberty, ironically I feel the freedom slip away.
How to do it: Cunard's 2691-passenger Queen Mary 2 operates year-round transatlantic crossings, with occasional cruises offered by Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth. Sailing in both directions, the ships depart from Southampton, Hamburg, New York or Fort Lauderdale. One-way fares start at $2099 per person, twin-share, including meals, room service, activities, entertainment and gratuities. cunard.com
Commune with cuttlefish in Whyalla
By Carrie Hutchinson
"Put your face in first," the dive master tells me. I'm swaddled in two layers of neoprene and standing chest deep in the ocean.
This is prep for full immersion. The water temperature in South Australia's Spencer Gulf at Point Lowly, outside the town of Whyalla, is 11 degrees Celsius. After the initial shock of skin touching frigid liquid, the mask goes on and I put my face in again. This time I can see the reason we're subjecting ourselves to these conditions: in every direction are giant cuttlefish.
Between May and August each year, Whyalla hosts the world's only known congregation of cuttlefish. They come in their thousands, the vast majority appearing in water between two and six metres deep. Perfect, in other words, for snorkellers and divers.
In the water, male cuttlefish are displaying shades of purple, brown and cream rippling across their bodies. It's their underwater mating dance and, if successful, their female partners will lay eggs beneath rock shelves in the bay.
Here, it's just us and the cuttlefish. Some swim close by, observing with big eyes. Others go about their wooing, completely unfazed by our presence.
That's the beautiful part, but here's the kicker... By the end of winter, these creatures will be gone. Permanently. Once cuttlefish breed, they die, and other sea creatures feed on the bodies until there's nothing left. Not until next year, when the next generation of cuttlefish returns to breed again.
How to do it: You can take a guided cuttlefish snorkelling or diving tour with Whyalla Diving Services. Alternatively, you can hire the gear from the team instore and explore yourself. See whyalladivingservices.com.au
Soak in Kinosaki Onsen's waters
By Katrina Lobley
Clip-clop. It's bath-time in Kinosaki Onsen and the Japanese town's streets are ringing with the sound of people shuffling towards a hot bath in raised wooden sandals called geta. They're also wearing a cotton robe (yukata) secured with a sash and, because it's chilly, socks and a short coat.
While dressing in traditional clothing might sound gimmicky, the ritual is embraced by locals and visitors alike. Kinosaki Onsen, as its name suggests, is awash with bathhouses. Within hours of arriving and checking in to Mikiya (a ryokan or traditional inn) that issues me with my top-to-toe outfit, I've set myself a mission: to soak in all seven onsen in a pilgrimage known as onsen meguri.
This is easier said than done when you have only two days to complete the mission. With one onsen closed daily for cleaning and some closed in the mornings, it requires military-style planning and an intense schedule of bathing morning and night. Between feasting on snow crabs (in season November to March) and seeing the wild oriental white storks reintroduced to the area, I tick off the public onsen (which are all tattoo-friendly). Each has its differences, ranging from garden views and faux caves to cypress-clad interiors.
Each onsen also presents a trinket to the day's first male and female visitors. On my last morning, I race (I've got the hang of slip-sliding around in geta now) to Kono-yu - my final onsen - to try to claim the prize. Arriving 30 minutes before opening isn't good enough. Still, Kinosaki Onsen's thermal waters have warmed my heart and left me with squeaky-clean memories.
How to do it: A one-way train journey north-west from Kyoto to Kinosaki Onsen near the Sea of Japan's coastline takes about 2.5 hours and is covered by the Japan Rail Pass. jrailpass.com
End-of-the-world escape in Corinna
By Laura Waters
Mist hangs in the canopy of a bottle green forest that tumbles into the water, reflecting hypnotically in its mirror surface. My paddle strokes pull me along the Pieman River in the early morning and all is still, save for the odd diving kingfisher.
After an hour kayaking, I divert up the jungle-like Savage River and tie my boat, leaving it to walk back through some of the most vibrant rainforest I've ever witnessed. Steady rain pings off leaves and moss-covered tree trunks but it only enriches the plethora of greens and kaleidoscope of fungi.
I didn't realise how much I yearned for isolation until I arrived at Corinna. Tucked in Tasmania's Western Wilds on the edge of the Tarkine Rainforest, and only accessible by unsealed roads (2WD is fine), it has a real end-of-the-world feel. It's the perfect place to hole up in a log cabin with a stash of food, wine and books.
In the late 1800s Corinna was a bustling gold mining settlement, but now Corinna Wilderness Village offers stays in a cluster of miners' cottages built in the style of old (and a few originals). Mobile coverage is blissfully absent and the only "TV" is the dancing flames of a fireplace, but all mod cons are provided.
From this tiny wilderness base, 10 walking trails explore rainforest, hidden waterfalls and the spectacular tussock-topped Mt Donaldson, while cruises on the huon pine Arcadia II reach the windswept beach at Pieman Heads.
To cosy up by the fire or head out into the wilds is the eternal question.
How to do it: Corinna Wilderness Village is in Tasmania's northwest, a 2.5-hour drive from Devonport. During winter, Corinna's Tannin restaurant closes however chef-prepared meals are available for reheating in cottages. corinna.com.au
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