Aureum is an ice-class vessel with eight solo cabins, one polar guide for every six guests and a fly-in option that trims time on the Drake Passage.
Expedition ships have been getting bigger. Secret Atlas has gone the other way. The London-based operator has debuted Aureum, a purpose-designed ice-class explorer yacht carrying 36 guests – among the smallest ships operating in Antarctic waters, and a deliberate rebuke to the 200-passenger vessels that now dominate the region. It enters service for the 2027/28 Antarctic and South Georgia season under a long-term partnership with Antarpply Expeditions.
Secret Atlas has built its business on what it calls Micro Cruises: 12 guests in the Arctic aboard Vikingfjord and Freya, working Svalbard and Greenland. Aureum extends the model south at triple the capacity, which still leaves it a fraction of the size of almost everything else in the Southern Ocean. The stated logic is behavioural rather than promotional: fewer people ashore means wildlife that doesn’t react to your presence.
The ratio is the headline number: one experienced polar guide for every six guests, alongside expedition leaders, scientists and naturalists. Multiple Zodiacs mean the whole complement can be on the water at once, rather than rotating through shifts, and itineraries stay loose enough to follow whatever the ice and the animals are doing.
Aureum carries 22 cabins, eight of them dedicated singles with no supplement, an unusual allocation in a segment where solo travellers routinely pay double. Onboard, there’s a panoramic observation lounge, a bridge lounge, an open observation bow, outdoor viewing decks, a wellness area with sauna and outdoor hot tub, and a restaurant that seats everyone in a single sitting.
Four programs are planned. Two sail from Ushuaia: the South Georgia In Depth Expedition and the South Georgia & Antarctica – Shackleton Special. Two more run under the operator’s Antarctica By Air banner, flying from Puerto Natales, Chile to cut the Drake Passage crossing: the Antarctic Circle By Air Expedition and the Antarctic Peninsula By Air & Sea Expedition.
Bookings for the 2027/28 and 2028/29 seasons are open through Secret Atlas. Given the cabin count, the singles are unlikely to last.