2017: Because I wanted to share this special destination with a well traveled (119 countries) travel buddy who is also a wildlife and photography enthusiast. 

   1998 & 2017: I also went because Lan Chile flies there, and LADATCO sells a lot of Chile, and this seemed worth investigating. Besides, I personally thrive on wildlife and I had to see if their "bigger-than-Texas" tales were really true and I hadn't giggled in a long time.

To translate this into a serious "why?": wildlife, life in Camp, the people, scenery, maritime history, the Conflict, Land Rovers.

Yes, Land Rovers.

Sometimes one of these is embedded in or an integral part of another - you can't know the people without learning their personal stories of the Conflict; you can't imagine life in the Camp without listening to some maritime history; you don't get ANYWHERE without a Land Rover and you can't go anywhere without seeing some wildlife, even if only flocks of Upland Geese flying overhead.
   2017 update: Still 1000% accurate.

Wildlife is abundant, but for me the highlight was definitely penguins - Rockhoppers, Gentoo, King, Magellanic and Macaroni are either year-round or summer visitors. They are found most everywhere, and sometimes two and three species all within a stone's throw of each other, so wandering carefully from Gentoos through the Magellanic burrows over to the Rockhoppers was just a normal occurrence (after the first time, of course).

I had been in small colonies (which seemed huge at the time) of Magellan penguins in Patagonia and I had seen pictures of colonies of Rockhoppers and Macaronis. Neither prepared me for the quantities of penguins I would encounter, nor for the hustle and bustle of activity nor for the never-ending clamor and racket as the soloists, duets, trios, quartets and orchestras practiced. There was also one (yes "one" as opposed to hundreds) Erect Crested, akin to the Rockhoppers and Macaronis, generally only found around New Zealand. This solitary little fellow, 12,000 miles from home, was standing proudly on top of a rock dead center of a grouping of 400 to 500 pairs of Rockhoppers. While Rockhoppers are the epitome of "bad hair day", King penguins are elegant - tall, slick, stately, with bright orange "ear muffs", "scarf" and "lip-stick". Their chicks are fuzzy brown balls and it is a challenge to imagine these bundles of brown fluff becoming aristocratic adults.

Driving along the beach on Pebble Island we encountered a solitary baby elephant seal snoozing away among the beached kelp piles. This "baby" was bigger than any sea lion I had ever seen and showed his displeasure at our intrusion by yawning and staring at me with huge round eyes. My photos of this baby face clearly shows my reflection in his eyes!

More than 50 huge elephant seals littered the beach at Sea Lion Island, some solitary with their own space, others in bunches side by side. The only movements were an occasional lazy flip of the flipper throwing sand over their bodies to form a protective layer against the sun, and a curious glance my way as I inched very slowly closer and closer.

(added 2017) From Carcass I made a day's excursion by boat to Westpoint Island to go to the 2nd largest Black-browed Albatross colony in the islands. There, intermingled with thousands of Rockhoppers on a u-shaped gully-cliff plunging down to the sea, were thousands of these huge birds and their new chicks. The every day feeding duty, with parents making multiple attempts at landing in small spaces (often surrounded by Rockhoppers) as hungry chicks were impatiently waiting, was truly a raucous event.

The islands are a bird-watcher's paradise. There are sixty seven species that breed in the islands, including the five species of penguins mentioned above. The islands are the world's main breeding area for the huge Black-browed Albatross. The beautiful Upland Geese are commonplace almost everywhere. At one small lagoon on Sea Lion Island, bounded by tall tussac grass clump, I spotted baby heron, several species of ducks, striated caracaras, the tiny tussac bird and Magellan penguins, and I probably would have seen more had I had time to sit and watch. Other species found in the islands include the black-necked swan, grebes, wigeon, peregrines, petrels, gulls and owls.

Life in Camp and the people of Camp vie with wildlife as the main highlight o when visiting the Falklands. "Camp" is everything outside of Stanley, where approximately 500 persons and 650,000 sheep, along with the abundant wildlife, live.

Life in Camp is inevitably colored by history - many farms have been managed by generations of the same family. Stories of growing up in Camp and daily activities provide fascinating listening. Life was once definitely remote and isolated - the life-line to civilization and a major form of entertainment was the radio telephone crackling away in the kitchen; there were few secrets when everyone everywhere could hear everything being said anywhere all the time. This snippet of information is generally passed on with a wry smile and followed by comments that today they have telephones and privacy but less entertainment.

Life in Camp, and the people that live that life, are part of the experience of being in the Falklands. To understand it, you have to experience it. And chances are, you'll find it as fascinating as I did.

And all wrapped up with those people of Camp are their stories of the 1982 Conflict between Argentina and Great Britain over the Islands. Everyone has a story, can tell you where they were and how it affected them. Fortunately, few stories are frightening or bloody. And fortunately there is relatively little animosity remaining. Any story summons up a sense of wonder at the depth of human endurance and compassion. What does remain are still some wired-off areas labeled "mine field", remote scatterings in Camp of mangled steel and plastic from crashed planes and helicopters, and well polished memorials to the men and women who fought in the Conflict.

Land Rover lovers - you'll be in heaven! And for the rest of us who have no experience with Land Rovers, we're going to become experienced fast. Unless you have done "off road driving", your imagination would have to work overtime to envision where you can go in a Land Rover. More than once I was sure that we couldn't do it and each time we easily did it! "Off road driving" is how it is most of the time. It is part of the reality of life there, and part of the fun for visitors.
     2017 update note:  Nothing has changed.  It is still mystifying the expertise off-road travel demands. And yet it is everyday for many in the islands. This ranks right up with with wildlife as a major experience.