For decades, Patagonia and the Chilean Fjords have lived in Antarctica's shadow.

Every austral summer, expedition travellers pour into the southern tip of Latin America on their way to the White Continent. Punta Arenas, Puerto Williams and Ushuaia have become synonymous with the beginning or end of an Antarctic adventure, while Patagonia is frequently presented as somewhere to spend a few extra days before or afterwards. Hike in Torres del Paine, stay in Santiago or Buenos Aires, perhaps add a short overland adventure, and then move on to what is perceived as the main event.

But look west from the mountains of Patagonia and a very different expedition begins.

Here, the Pacific has broken the southern edge of South America into an immense labyrinth of islands, channels and fjords. Glaciers descend from the Patagonian icefields towards the sea. Temperate rainforest clings to mountainsides. Whales feed in protected waters, penguins gather on remote islands and tiny communities remain connected to the outside world primarily by boat. Farther south, the waterways splinter again around Tierra del Fuego before eventually reaching Cape Horn.

Much of this coastline has no road at all. Some of its most remarkable places can only realistically be approached from the sea.

This is not somewhere that needs an expedition ship to feel adventurous. The geography itself makes expedition cruising one of the most natural ways to explore it.

And yet, for many expedition travellers, the Chilean Fjords remain something to add to an Antarctica cruise rather than a reason to travel to South America in their own right.

Perhaps we have been looking at it the wrong way around.

Perhaps Patagonia doesn't need to be added to an Antarctica expedition at all. Perhaps Antarctica has simply been distracting us from an expedition destination hiding in plain sight.

Ask someone to picture Patagonia, and chances are they will imagine granite towers rising above Torres del Paine, hikers on mountain trails, guanacos on the steppe or the long ribbon of Chile's Carretera Austral.

It is an extraordinary landscape, but it is only one version of Patagonia.

To its west lies a very different world.

The southern Pacific coastline of Chile has been fractured into thousands of islands, peninsulas, sounds, channels and fjords. The Andes don't so much finish at the coast here as disappear into it, creating a geography in which land and sea become increasingly difficult to separate.

There are settlements without road connections, glaciers whose natural approach is from the water and vast areas where travelling by ship isn't an alternative to exploring overland. It is the way in.

That distinction matters when thinking about the Chilean Fjords as an expedition destination. Unlike some parts of the world where expedition cruising has opened a new way of seeing an already established destination, here the ship feels integral to understanding the landscape.

The voyage itself becomes part of the exploration.

Ice is one reason Antarctica dominates expedition travellers' imaginations. But it is also fundamental to Patagonia.

The Northern and Southern Patagonian Ice Fields feed an extraordinary network of glaciers, lakes and fjords. Travelling by sea brings expedition ships towards places where that relationship between mountains, ice and ocean can be experienced directly.

Garibaldi Fjord is one example. Here, in Alberto de Agostini National Park, ships can navigate towards Garibaldi Glacier through a landscape where mountains rise abruptly from the water.

Farther north lies the immense Pío XI Glacier, while elsewhere names such as Pía, Marinelli and Agostini repeatedly appear on expedition maps.

These aren't simply scenic backdrops viewed through a window.

Depending on the voyage and conditions, exploration will focus around Zodiacs or small expedition boats, kayaking, walks and hikes ashore and time spent on deck as the ship navigates waterways that are themselves part of the experience.

That creates a very different relationship with Patagonia from flying into a lodge or driving through it.

You are travelling through the landscape rather than arriving at individual attractions within it.

Another misconception for expedition cruise travellers can lie in how Patagonia is often portrayed.

Words such as remote, pristine and untouched can easily create the impression that these waterways are empty.

They aren't.

Indigenous peoples have travelled through the channels of southern Chile for thousands of years, developing cultures intimately connected with the sea.

Among them are the Kawésqar, whose traditional territory stretches through an enormous area of western Patagonia.

Puerto Edén provides one of the rare opportunities on some expedition itineraries to encounter the human story of these waterways. Located on Wellington Island and accessible only by sea, the small community includes members of the Kawésqar people. Expedition ships visiting the settlement therefore arrive not simply at another remote Patagonian location, but within a living cultural landscape.

Elsewhere, Caleta Tortel offers a very different example of life shaped by geography. The settlement, at the mouth of the Río Baker, is famous for its network of wooden boardwalks rather than conventional streets. Current expedition itineraries use the community as another point of access into this less-travelled maritime Patagonia.

These places help change the character of the journey.

Patagonia isn't simply glaciers and mountains viewed from a ship. It is a place where geography has shaped how people travel, communicate and live.

The landscapes inevitably dominate the photographs, but the Chilean Fjords are also a wildlife destination.

Cetaceans can appear within the channels, elephant seals occur along the route, and farther south the islands of Tierra del Fuego support colonies of Magellanic penguins and other seabirds. Current expedition programmes actively incorporate wildlife watching alongside glacier and fjord exploration.

One particularly interesting location is Francisco Coloane Marine Park in the Strait of Magellan. Expeditions operating here can visit Carlos III Island and surrounding waters to search for humpback whales, adding an important marine-wildlife dimension to a journey that could otherwise be perceived principally as a landscape expedition.

And that may be another reason Patagonia deserves to be considered differently.

An expedition through the Chilean Fjords can move through several different worlds during the same journey: temperate rainforest, icefields, mountains, marine ecosystems, remote settlements and the increasingly sub-Antarctic landscapes of Tierra del Fuego.

There isn't one defining Patagonian experience; the constant is change.

The scale of conservation in this part of Chile is equally striking.

The Kawésqar National Reserve covers approximately 2.63 million hectares and is entirely marine. Within it are central and southern Patagonian channels, fjords, exposed Pacific coastline and parts of the Strait of Magellan.

Continue south, and the scale grows even larger.

The UNESCO Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve encompasses more than 5.26 million hectares, including approximately 3.32 million hectares of marine environment. Within its boundaries are the world's southernmost forests alongside glaciers, ice fields, fjords, channels, kelp forests, mountains and intricate seabed ecosystems.

That makes an expedition through this region about more than dramatic scenery.

Travellers move through one of the planet's great transitions, from the forests and icefields of Patagonia through the waterways of Tierra del Fuego towards the turbulent meeting of the Pacific and Atlantic at the southern extremity of the Americas.

There are places where the scale of Patagonia is difficult to comprehend until you put something human into the landscape. A kayak does exactly that.

We’ve shown photos of kayaking in Patagonia to members, and they immediately assume it is Antarctica, Svalbard, or Greenland. 

Paddling through the fjords brings you down to water level, beneath mountains and immense walls of blue ice that can dwarf the brightly coloured kayaks below. Away from the perspective of the ship, the landscape suddenly feels bigger, quieter and considerably more remote. It is perhaps one of the purest ways to experience what makes expedition cruising in this part of South America so different.

Kayaking opportunities are offered on selected Patagonian voyages, subject, as always in expedition cruising, to itinerary, weather and local conditions. HX, for example, includes opportunities to kayak around places such as Caleta Tortel and Puerto Williams on its Chilean Fjords expeditions.

And this is where Patagonia starts to feel less like somewhere you simply sail through on the way to somewhere else. A morning spent paddling beneath a glacier, surrounded by floating ice and almost impossibly large scenery, can be one of the defining experiences of the voyage.

For travellers looking at Patagonia as an expedition destination in its own right, kayaking may be one of the strongest arguments for getting off the ship and properly into the landscape.

None of this diminishes Antarctica.

The White Continent has become the foundational and defining expedition cruise destination for good reason. Few travel experiences can match its scale, wildlife, ice or sheer sense of separation from the rest of the world. Not to mention the bragging rights. 

But its success may have unintentionally distorted how we think about other destinations, including the southern end of Latin America.

For expedition cruising, Punta Arenas and Puerto Williams are increasingly associated with getting somewhere else. Patagonia becomes the Antarctic pre- or post-cruise extension. Tierra del Fuego becomes the gateway. Cape Horn becomes the last landmark before the Drake Passage.

The language gives the game away.

Gateway. Extension. Add-on.

All describe Patagonia in relation to another destination.

What happens if we remove Antarctica from the itinerary entirely?

Suddenly those same gateways become starting points. The channels become the route. The glaciers become the objective. Cape Horn becomes the destination rather than the landmark you leave behind.

And importantly, expedition products now allow travellers to do exactly that.

Some expedition cruise companies operate longer Chilean Fjords voyages that include places such as Caleta Tortel, Puerto Edén, Puerto Natales, the White Narrows, the Strait of Magellan, Garibaldi Fjord, and Cape Horn.

Others treat Patagonia as an expedition destination in its own right, exploring the remote waterways, fjords and glaciated landscapes of southern Chile, using the ship as a base for Zodiac exploration and shore excursions rather than simply passing through Patagonia en route to Antarctica.

The products are different, but collectively they demonstrate something important.

You no longer need Antarctica as an excuse to explore Patagonia by expedition ship.

Perhaps the biggest mistake would be to sell Patagonia and the Chilean Fjords as a substitute for Antarctica.

They aren't.

And that is precisely why the destination is interesting.

Antarctica offers an extraordinary concentration of ice and wildlife in an environment almost entirely devoid of permanent human settlement. Patagonia is more complicated and, in some ways, a more complete cruising experience.

Here rainforest can descend almost to the water before giving way to snow and ice. A morning among glaciers can be followed by an encounter with a remote community. Narrow channels demand careful navigation. Whales can surface in waters overlooked by forested mountains. Historic sea routes intersect with Indigenous cultures that long predate European exploration.

It is greener, more inhabited and in places more intimate.

And for expedition travellers who have already been to Antarctica, the Arctic or both, that difference may be exactly the attraction.

That can also be said of travellers seeking a semi-polar experience, such as glacial zodiac and fjord cruising, without travelling to the extremities of the polar regions.

There will always be good reasons to combine Patagonia and Antarctica. If you have travelled halfway around the world, putting the two together can create an extraordinary journey.

But perhaps we have been asking the wrong question.

For years, the travel industry has talked about what travellers can add to an Antarctica cruise. A few days in Torres del Paine, Santiago or Buenos Aires. Tierra del Fuego. Perhaps a journey through the Chilean Fjords.

What if we turned that around?

What could you add to a Patagonia and Chilean Fjords expedition?

Perhaps it is Antarctica. Perhaps it is several days hiking beneath the granite towers of Torres del Paine, exploring the Atacama Desert, crossing into Argentine Patagonia or spending time in Santiago or Buenos Aires. Suddenly the Chilean Fjords aren't filling the days around another journey. They are the journey around which everything else is built.

Because there is enough here for an expedition measured not in extra days, but in weeks: navigating waterways few conventional travellers ever see, approaching glaciers from the sea, exploring by Zodiac, watching for whales beneath the mountains and following the channels south until there is almost nowhere else to go.

Antarctica may continue to command the headlines at this end of the world. It may even make a spectacular addition to a Patagonia expedition.

But perhaps it is time to stop automatically asking travellers what they are adding to Antarctica and start asking a different question:

What are you going to add to Patagonia?

Perhaps Patagonia doesn't need to be added to an Antarctica expedition at all. Perhaps Antarctica has simply been distracting us from an expedition destination hiding in plain sight.