There are two travel itineraries of ours, that friends have reached out and asked us to share, on multiple occasions – Alaska and Egypt. Coincidentally, those were also two of our more decently-planned trips. V and I, as much as we love to travel, don’t do the excel sheet planning when we travel. Mostly, this is how we go about things – identify a few sights to see, things to do and places to eat. From there we just go with how things roll and try to hit those on the list. If we do, great, if not, we still have a good time.
Coming back to Alaska, if you read my previous post, you may already know that our trip to Alaska was both an incredible trip, and one that also left an ever-lasting impact on us! The serene, pristine beauty, wilderness, and the remoteness that Alaska offered was at a scale we both had never experienced before. It soothes you and makes you come alive, all in the same moment. The state is also in a very fragile place, with the impacts of climate change reality staring at its face. Studies say the impact of climate change in this state is larger than 43 other states in the US! What was planned as our wedding anniversary trip, turned out to be an experience that made us reconsider every part our life.
Before I dive in, keep in mind that this is a vast state that offers so much to do. It is going to take someone more than one trip to get a grasp of all that it has to offer, unless you have months at an end to travel! I will try to throw in everything we considered and what we finally landed up doing. And there will always be pieces that will work for your plan.
When did we go? Where did we stay?
We were in Alaska in the first week of June. The ideal time to go to Alaska, especially if you want the summer experience, is mid-June to end of August. The big advantage of being here earlier in June is you can skip some of the crowds and could still get some good deals, which is great. However, the disadvantage is, bears and other animals are just barely coming out of hibernation, and summer is not completely out in its full glory. Mid-June to August is peak travel time to Alaska, and if you are planning a trip during that period, plan months ahead and look for deals. The remoteness of the state added to the short summer makes everything expensive. We stayed at a Marriot property (used hotel points, which was pretty expensive) in Anchorage and used Airbnb in the other locations. Our friends who went later in a larger group used an RV – this works great for families with small children or people going as a group and helps cut accommodation costs especially around National Parks.
Things that we considered, but didn’t do:
We got some recommendations to take a cruise from Seattle or Vancouver to Alaska and heard it can be pretty spectacular. Another suggestion we heard was to drive from Vancouver all the way up through Canada. I am sure that these would be amazing experiences on its own, but due to time constraints, we directly flew in and out of Anchorage. Also, initially when we set out planning the trip, Katmai National Park was on top our list of places to visit. However, as I mentioned earlier, the time we chose was not ideal to spot bears and given the expensive charter plane options, we decided that the risk was not worth it. My husband’s friend had such amazing pictures of bears hunting for salmon in the river there, which is what piqued my interest in going to Alaska in the first place. The other places we were considering were, The Glacier Bay National Park and driving to Chugach State park and hiking there – which is a popular day trip from Anchorage.
Things we actually did:
We made our trip a very national park and road trip focused one. We had a week there and covered three main areas
- Kenai Fjords – For the quintessential Alaskan marine experience
- Wrangell- St Elias – To get a sense of what wild Alaska can really be
- Denali – Because well, its Alaska and its Denali…
We used Anchorage as our base and drove to the different destinations. Wrangell St Elias and Denali were each 2-day trips and Kenai Fjords was a day trip from Anchorage. We spent one day in Anchorage, just exploring and going around and took it easy, since we had a lot of driving ahead of us. The long days, where the sun didn’t set till around 2AM, made it possible for us to cover a lot more in a day than what we usually would have. One good recommendation before anything – we read that there is a road next to the airport (Point Woronzof Road) where we can spot moose and it completely checks out! Nothing like finding a moose just roaming around as soon as you land. Yes, we did see a lot more moose after, but spotting that big bull moose right off the mark started the trip on an awesome note. We also visited the shopping area (it was good, but not the greatest), and had enough time to also visit the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Centre on the first day. It houses injured animals and helps rehabilitate them and is a good introduction to the different types of animals you’ll spot in Alaska.
Kenai Fjords was an all-day trip from Anchorage. We took the scenic route to Seward and then the 8.5 hours cruise from there. The Kenai fjords cruise is a marine wildlife, oceans, mountains, glaciers all meets in one place kind of experience. The Fjords is home to a wide range of wildlife in Alaska. Be ready with your tele lenses if you have them. The tour guides on the cruise were great at explaining the impact of climate change of the glaciers and showing us pictures from even 10 years ago to compare how quickly the glaciers are disappearing! As we were in the boat, there was this moment of eerie silence as we all watched some huge chunks of glaciers calving. It’s a moment of both awe, shock and pain at the same time! Yes, we missed hiking on a glacier or kayaking, which are the other options, but no regrets, the cruise was an equally enthralling and breathtaking experience. We also spotted humpbacks, orcas, seals, otters, porpoises, puffins, some mountain goats, sea lions, moose and others … pretty sure I am missing something here! Since this cruise itself was 8 hours, we spent the rest of the leisurely roaming around Seward.
Wrangell- St Elias was our last-minute addition, because we decided to opt out of going to Katmai. This was our more “wing it” part of the journey. The drive to McCarthy was a long one and we took multiple stops in many scenic spots and remote places to take it all in. Highly recommend that – this road trip was candidly the best part of the week. We got to spend a fair amount of time on a glacial creek all by ourselves and got to see Alaska for the truly wild and remote place it can be. Wrangell is pretty rugged and vast, and is the largest NP in North America! This National park on its own could easily be a 3 to 4-day trip. If you are using a rental car, you cannot drive past a certain point because they don’t have paved roads and so they make you sign waivers when you pick up the car saying you won’t drive in these areas. We did not know this and we didn’t want to risk things, so we took a flightseeing trip of the park. Yes, it was a bit of an unplanned expense, but we weighed that against potentially having a flat tire and wasting time and money and opted for this. Also yes, this does not make up for experiencing this rugged terrain on foot, but this was a quick solution that we went around. If you are like my husband who loves wilderness and rugged terrain, this NP should be on top of your list, with extensive planning though. All things said though, this flight ride on a bush plane was actually pretty epic and we got some really stunning views of glaciers and glacial lakes that we might not have seen otherwise. And to somewhat compensate the lack of hiking so far, we did a moderate hike near Wrangell called the Liberty Falls trail. It was a pretty cool hike with stunning views of the Wrangell range and the Kotsina river that borders it, but it wasn’t too strenuous either. We stayed at a small Airbnb on the outskirts of Wrangell NP and explored the area further before heading back to Anchorage the next day morning.
At Denali, we stayed in a tour bus converted into an AirBnb – it was a very unique experience and was pretty fun to go take a shower under that sky in the relatively cold morning. Camping is obviously an option in Denali and since you can basically do some back-country hiking and camp anywhere within the park (as long as you have the permit), that is a pretty cool option as well. I am a very reluctant camper, so we went with the option of staying just outside the national park which gave us this feeling of being secluded and middle of nowhere, but an upgrade from camping. The park is a 4-hour drive from Anchorage. We left on the wee hours of the morning so we can catch one of the earlier park bus trips. You can’t drive your vehicle inside the park, but there are different tour and transit buses available that you can reserve ahead of time. We researched the tour buses, but decided against those in favor of just reserving a seat on one of the transit buses. It’s a lot cheaper for one and it also gives you the flexibility to just get down where you want to, hike when you want to and just come back to the road to hitch a ride back on another transit bus (as long as they have available seating). While it doesn’t come with any narration officially, our bus driver was happy to chat with us and provide some information and answer our questions. And the transit buses also stop when they spot any wildlife and provide time for us to take it all in. It was a fun experience where the whole bus was actively looking for any animal spotting and if one of us saw something, we would call it out and the bus would stop for us to take photos J. We saw quite a few caribou, a lot of moose and the iconic Dall Sheep. We even saw a few a family of foxes out in the distance. Conspicuously missing in this list? The grizzly bear – again, too early and they hadn’t come out of hibernation yet. We did a cool hike within the park and came uncomfortably close to a bull moose – the moose and V and I looked at each other for about 5 seconds before the moose decided to run away from us weird looking folks. Denali of course is also home to North America’s highest peak, Denali (obviously!) which they say only 30% of the people have been fortunate to catch a glimpse of. I belonged to the 70% if you wanted to know. It was a pretty cloudy and muggy day unfortunately and we were already on the way back by the time it started to clear up. V saw the peak when I was driving, but by the time we got to the next view point, the clouds had covered it again. One of my favorite part in the park was Sled dogs kennel, and the demonstrations by the Alaskan huskies. Denali would easily on its own could be a 3-day trip, if you want to camp inside and do multiple hikes across the park.
Wrapping up, until next time
This state is huge and there is so much to do, so it really comes down to what you want to do and which part of Alaska you want to visit. Packing some snacks and frozen/ready to cook meals always comes handy, especially if you are driving to more remote parts. This also saves you money that can be wasted in some tourist trap places. Do carry a bear spray and be watchful of wildlife activity. And last but not the least, pack multiple layers even if its summer. You may need them. Happy to answer any more questions, if you have any.