In 2013, our oldest son, Steve, had a sabbatical (he is a lawyer) and approached me to take a father/son trip somewhere. When asked where we should go I suggested Antarctica. Our wives wished us well, stating that did not appeal to them at all. Well, we traveled with Lindblad Expeditions on the National Geographic signature ship, the Explorer on what turned out to be a magnificent trip on a magnificent, first class ship.  When our wives saw what we experienced they both wished they had joined us on that ship. Fast forward to today.  Last year Steve said he wanted to take his family on the National Geographic Explorer and was planning to travel north to the Arctic Circle region to look for polar bears. Did we want to come along?  No problem, said my wife, Yvonne. Count us in. So here we are, leaving for Oslo, Norway to begin our expedition trip with Lindblad Expeditions on the National Geographic Explorer headed to explore the region around Svalbard.

Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago (group of islands) in the Arctic Ocean, situated north of mainland Europe, about midway between continental Norway and the North Pole. Yes, it is in the middle of nowhere!

We will be flying to Oslo, Norway, the starting point for our expedition. Here is a link to the trip (“Land of the Ice Bears”) we will be taking with Lindblad if you are interested in more details about the trip.

https://www.expeditions.com/destinations/polar-regions/arctic/itineraries/land-of-the-ice-bears-an-in-depth-exploration-of-arctic-svalbard/overview/

From there we will fly to Svalbard to meet our home for the week- the National Geographic Explorer expedition ship. By the way, contrary to common belief there are no penguins In the Arctic; this is polar bear country!

Join us for this new “Wanderingbishops” adventure.