Antarctica is opening up to a new type of tourist, as a British company promises customers that they can re-create the dash by Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen to be the first person to plant a flag at the bottom of the world.

The South Pole Race is a competitive expedition that has turned a once-treacherous journey into a trip available to anyone with £42,000 burning a hole in their Gore-Tex pocket.

British and Norwegian teams will compete against up to eight other groups to be the first to complete a journey of almost 500 miles to the geographical pole.

The expedition organisers have played up the resemblance to Scott's and Amundsen's heroic competition in the early 20th century, but latter-day polar explorers setting off in December will need a fraction of the pioneers' bravery.

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Scott, who arrived at the pole on January 17, 1912, a month after Amundsen, died in his attempt as blizzards thwarted his return.

The British team, which includes James Cracknell, the former Olympic oarsman, and Ben Fogle, the television presenter, will follow a route just over half the length of the one forged by Scott's Terra Nova Expedition.

The teams will be flown to a point 480 miles from the geographic pole, where they will embark on the first leg of the journey, followed by a safety team driving a 4x4 car.

The return leg will be even less of a challenge. For while Scott and his party perished 11 miles from their next food depot when they became too weak to continue — Scott's body was found in his sleeping bag, its flaps thrown open and his coat unfastened — their modern counterparts will be ferried back to Novo, the Russian scientific facility, by aircraft.

The tourists will also avoid the difficulties of being caught in temperatures of minus 60C (-76F) with only woollen jumpers and tweed trousers for protection. Scott's method of layering garments was effective against the inhospitable conditions, but the extra weight caused by sweat meant that he burned up to 20 per cent more energy.

The modern teams will wear specially designed Gore-Tex jackets and use sleeping bags with the latest insulation technology.

The biggest peril will be tumbling into a crevasse, although the journey has been tailored to avoid the most dangerous areas.

Tony Martin, the entrepreneur behind the Amundsen Omega 3 South Pole Race, denied that the expedition was a jaunt for playboys. Speaking at the launch of the race, at the Ice Bar, near Regent Street, Central London, he said that competitors would come from all backgrounds.

“Thankfully, we don't get many playboys. With the right attitude and the right [financial] backer, anyone can train to do it. This is completely open,” he said.

The race would be safe, but would still be a feat of endurance, he added. “When they arrive the hairs in their nostrils will freeze the moment they step off the plane. It's then that you get polar shock. No matter how much you train, you can't prepare for it. You just want to be back in your local pub.”

Participants will have modern skis rather than wooden ones, but they will face similar hazards. “If you take your glove off at minus 60C it will freeze within 30 seconds. If you're stupid enough to leave it longer than that then [your hand] starts to turn black.”

He said that racers, who will be tied together, should be most wary of crevasses. “The worst thing that could happen to them is to fall into a crevasse. If you haven't broken your back in the first place, and if you haven't got out your switch knife to cut the rope, then you're going in as well. The question we get asked is, 'What do you do if you fall into a crevasse?'. The answer is, 'You don't'. It is one of those imponderables.”

Mr Martin, 43, the manager of a catering business, said that the most challenging part was skiing up to 18 hours a day with no relief from the featureless whiteness. “The race is 90 per cent mental endurance. You're inside your head for 18 hours a day, day after day, for up to three weeks.”

Richard Dunwoody, the former champion jockey, who returned from a similar expedition to the South Pole with Mr Martin in February, said that his 48-day journey was a harrowing experience. “One guy had to be airlifted out due to mental and physical exhaustion,” he said. “It took six days from the time he wanted to get out to when we actually got him out.”

He suffered frostbite on his legs from temperatures of minus 50C (including wind chill), and another member of his party, Doug Stoup, suffered from snow blindness, causing him to lose sight temporarily in one eye.

He lost three stone (18kg) because he was unable to eat as many calories as his body consumed while pulling a 110kg (242lb) sled. Racers' rations provide them with 6,500 calories a day, but they burn 9,000.

The body uses up fat reserves and then begins to consume muscle, Mr Martin said. “The body will self-mutilate. You normally lose a stone of fat and a stone of muscle, so you come back a really strange shape.”

Professor Liz Morris, of The Scott Polar Institute at the University of Cambridge, is concerned about possible environmental damage, and appealed for companies who offer trips to the South Pole to conduct impact assessments.

She also cautioned against too many people visiting the continent. “If you had a large number of people doing this it would be miserable. It would be like Everest. It used to be a wilderness. Now there's all sorts of rubbish up there. If you were to pass three or four parties every day then it would lose its sense of wilderness.”

The cold facts

— Antarctica is home to penguins, whales, seals and numerous birds, but not polar bears

— Dogs have been banned from Antarctica to protect the seal population

— Antarctica is not owned by any government, though many nations have bases on the continent. The Antarctic Treaty of 1959 vowed to use the area for peaceful, scientific purposes

— In summer the interior of Antarctica is almost continuously in daylight

— Antarctica has no indigenous population and no people lived there until 1897, when the first explorers established a winter station

— The centre of Antarctica is the largest desert in the world. In some parts, it has not rained for millions of years

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