Lindblad Expeditions

Lindblad Expeditions descends from Lindblad Travel, founded in 1958 by Lars-Eric Lindblad, who led some of the first groups of travellers to Antarctica in 1966 and the Galápagos in 1967 and commissioned an early purpose-built expedition ship. His son Sven founded Special Expeditions in 1979 as its marine-focused arm; renamed Lindblad Expeditions, it formed an alliance with National Geographic in 2004, and the ships below all carry the National Geographic name. This is an expedition fleet, not a cruise fleet in the resort sense: eight small ships, the largest just 12,786 GT, built or adapted to work in remote places with small groups of guests, naturalists and expedition equipment. The oldest, National Geographic Sea Bird of 1981, is a small coastal vessel, while National Geographic Explorer and National Geographic Orion are converted earlier ships. The newest pair, National Geographic Endurance and National Geographic Resolution, are purpose-built polar ships, the most capable in the fleet.