tourism founded 1996 headquarters vlissingen zeeland netherlands products expedition cruise tours website www.oceanwide expeditions.com oceanwide expeditions is a dutch company organising tours to the arctic and antarctic regions . with their own fleet of vessels they observe wildlife and visit historical sights in remote areas with hardly any infrastructure . these areas are almost only reachable by boat . the tours take passengers to the arctic and antarctic regions with different points of destinations in which they can go ashore mostly by small boats from the main vessels . contents 1 history 2 awards and recognitions 3 partnerships 4 fleet 5 destinations 5.1 arctic region 5.2 antarctic region 6 see also 7 references 8 external links history edit the dutch plancius foundation was the first cruise operator to organise expedition cruises on a yearly basis from 1983 . oceanwide expeditions continued with the activities of the plancius foundation in 1996 . the origin of the plancius foundation started with the arctic centre of the university of groningen where the interest for a research study to the dutch whaling in spitsbergen from the 17th century was launched . with louwrens hacquebord leading this initiative the ship pollox was purchased in 1979 and renamed plancius to accommodate the smeerenburg expeditions . 1 alongside the presence of scientists in these expeditions there were also tourists onboard who paid for their journey . this was a part of the later financial supports for the expeditions . eventually financial troubles overtook the plancius foundation and the ship was sold . awards and recognitions edit in 2011 oceanwide expeditions became the fourth time winner of the world travel award worlds leading polar expedition operator . 2 partnerships edit oceanwide expeditions works closely with organizations which stand for preservation of natural habitats and environmental conditions . in the arctic this is the association of arctic expedition cruise operators aeco 3 and clean up svalbard . in the antarctic this is international association of antarctic tour operators iaato 4 and birdlife international . fleet edit oceanwide operates four vessels of different classes . the sailing vessels s v rembrandt van rijn and s v noorderlicht and the former strengthened royal dutch navy oceanographic research vessels mv plancius 5 and mv ortelius 6 a former special purpose vessel of the russian academy of science . all of the vessels are equipped with rigid hulled inflatable boats for ship to shore landings in remote areas and the ortelius is fitted to carry two helicopters . destinations edit mv ortelius in antarctica mv plancius in longyearbyen sv noordelicht in greenland arctic region edit lofoten bear island greenland spitsbergen jan mayen fair isle antarctic region edit bouvet island cape verde south orkney islands south sandwich islands antarctic peninsula south shetland islands ross sea ushuaia weddell sea falkland islands south georgia ascension island st. helena tristan da cunha the best time of the year to visit the arctic region is in and around the summer of the northern hemisphere april september and the best time to visit the antarctic region is in the summer of the southern hemisphere october march . see also edit professor molchanov mv antarctic dream references edit de korte j. a tourist in the arctic pdf . university of groningen . retrieved 27 march 2014 . world travel awards oceanwide expeditions . www.worldtravelawards.com . retrieved 27 march 2014 . our members . association of arctic expedition cruise operators . retrieved 27 march 2014 . service providers and operators . international association of antarctic tour operators . retrieved 27 march 2014 . abbuhl ruedi & priska 2010 . antarktis mit mv plancius . polar news in german . retrieved 27 march 2014 . bryant dennis may 2013 . maritime musings mv ortelius . maritimeprofessional.com . retrieved 27 march 2014 . external links edit oceanwide expeditions . retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title oceanwide expeditions & oldid 682369427 categories expedition cruisingtravel and holiday companies of the netherlandsorganisations based in zeelandvlissingenhidden categories cs1 german language sources de navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 23 september 2015 at 08 35 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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