Adventure travel doesn’t have to mean roughing it

Adventure travel doesn’t have to mean roughing it

Does the thought of traveling to far-off places and seeing incredible, heart-soaring wonders send a shiver of excitement up your spine?

Perhaps your wanderlust draws you to remote destinations like Patagonia or Alaska? Far into the wild and away from the crowds.

Perhaps you’d like to go night diving with hammerheads in the Maldives, kayaking through icebergs in Antarctica, or exploring an underwater graveyard of WWII wrecks in Micronesia.

And yet you hesitate because “roughing it” isn’t exactly your style.

OceanScape Yachts has the perfect solution. Wilderness cruising is a fast-growing sector of the yachting industry. On a wilderness yacht charter, a day of adrenaline-coursing adventure is followed by a relaxing evening on board, perhaps dining on deck after diving the Galapagos, or warming up in the Jacuzzi after heliskiing off the yacht under Norway’s northern lights.

And it’s all far more accessible than you might think! The OceanScape Club is the world’s first travel club dedicated to bringing the once-exclusive world of yacht vacations to travelers just like you.

With a private chef, stunning accommodations, and a professional crew tending to your every need, you’ll be in the lap of luxury as you float through some of the most wild and wonderful landscapes the world has to offer. In fact, here are two superb wilderness yacht charter destinations that truly raise the bar for remote cruising.

Raja Ampat

Raja Ampat, Indonesia

I challenge you not to hold your breath in wonder as you approach this archipelago, where over a thousand islands are scattered like emerald jewels through a bright turquoise sea. Limestone outcrops rise above the water, covered in thick jungle and coconut palms, their shores lined with blinding white sand beaches, mysterious sea caves, dense mangrove forests, and blue lagoons.

Dip your head under the crystal clear water, and things get seriously technicolor, with spectacular coral formations, dazzling schools of fish, caverns as big as cathedrals, and giant sea clams littering the sea floor. Part of the infamous Coral Triangle, Raja Ampat Marine Park is 4.5 million hectares of reef and island, beach and sky, creating one of the great biological hotspots of the world, with 75% of all known coral species and over 1,400 different types of fish.

This is a place of fantastical creatures—a glimmering underwater Amazon full of wild and wonderful life. Manta rays and pygmy seahorses float through the sunlit waters, dugongs and leatherback turtles poke their heads up near the yacht, and splendidly odd wobbegong sharks cruise along the seabed, their tassels and spots blending in with the coral. On a Raja Ampat yacht charter, spend happy days diving and snorkelling and picnicking on tropical beaches with not a footprint in sight.

Download our free guide to yachting in Indonesia here.

The Kimberley, Australia

The Kimberley, Australia

Get ready, because this is wild cruising of a type that you’ll never get out of your mind.

One of the most sparsely populated places on earth, the Kimberley is a striking desert landscape of rugged escarpments, mighty waterfalls, and breathtaking river gorges. Red rock islands rise out of aquamarine sea in silent archipelagos. Boab trees stand stark against an outback landscape, and the Bungle Bungles (perhaps the world’s weirdest rock formations) hide crystal clear swimming holes and caves with ancient Aboriginal art.

There’s luxury hiding here too, in this spectacular, forbidding landscape, with the five-star outback ranch El Questro providing the perfect detour from the yacht by helicopter.

With so much awe-inspiring scenery, you might expect this place to be overrun with boats. That would probably be the case, if it weren’t for the massive, gnarly crocodiles perched on every picture-perfect beach, and sharks circling the yacht at night, sinister black shadows in the glow of the underwater lights. The Kimberley’s massive 36 foot tides reveal reefs that rise out of the water, and the force of the currents are such that it makes a waterfall run uphill.

At night, galaxies of stars are printed in high definition across the skies, and the explosive sunrises and sunsets ripple across the landscape like Armageddon has arrived. You might spend two weeks here and see nobody but a pearl diver or a solitary customs plane flying overhead. This is adventure cruising at its finest. This is a place for the wild at heart.

Patagonia

Want to learn more about yachting to destinations near and far? OceanScape Yachts has put together the ultimate guide to yachting vacations and you can download it for free right now.