Iandor

Would like some advice on a 3 day tour into Denali National Park. We would like to take the train from Anchorage the first day, then a tour into the park on the second day and return to Anchorage the 3rd day. There seems to be so many tours I am getting confused. Where is the best place to stay at the park. I gather the accommodation is at the park entrance. How many different tours do the park? We are planning this for 6/7/8 Sept this year and we are from Australia and have never been to Alaska before. Appreciate some advice. Thanks

Cheshirecatt

I am also from Australia and did a fantastic trip to Alaska not too long ago. I strongly recommend spending two full days in Denali - 3 nights.

Accommodation is not exactly right at the Park Entrance unfortunately, so you should pick accommodation that offers a short shuttle into the Park and to the Visitor Center (as that is where the Park Road buses leave from).

We stayed at McKinley Village Lodge which was good, and although we had a hire car, they do offer shuttles from the lodge into the Park. But check out this site and trip advisor and decide for yourself.

Whether you hire a car from Anchorage and drive yourselves (easy drive) or train it, I strongly recommend doing the following over the course of 2 or preferably 3 full days (4 would be even better):

-Take the green shuttle bus down the Park Road to at least Eielson (full day)
-Visit the sled dogs in Denali Park
- Take the shuttle bus to your favourite spot, get out and spend the day hiking (amazing and a very different feeling to looking out the window of a bus)
- if you managed to wrangle a 3rd or 4th day and extra cash, take a flight over Denali

TIP: Book the early green shuttle bus that does the full Park Road tour in Denali yourself online and up to six months in advance at:
http://www.reservedenali.com/shuttles.aspx

You are in for a treat, as Alaska is stunning. We did a 1 week Alaskan Cruise, then hired a car and did a road trip around Alaska for a few weeks.

If you wish, you can see my pictures and articles about my Alaskan trip including Denali at my website:
http://www.dreamhorsemedia.com/travel/

Where else are you going in Alaska?

ageoghagan

One thing to note: If you rent a car at the Airport in Anchorage, you will pay 38% tax. If you take a taxi to an off-site office, your tax rate will drop to 18%. This is a significant difference in price.

Iandor

Thanks for the replies. Previous to our arrival in Anchorage we will have completed a 11 day small boat cruise from Ketchikan to Sitka with Alaskan Dream Cruises. We had a response from an Alaskan Tour company regarding a 3 day tour to Denali which we think we might take. We also plan to hire a car for a day and drive down to Seward. We only have 5 days for this part of Alaska as we also have Vancouver Is, the Rockies. Iceland, and North Eastern USA planned for our 8 week trip away. We were fortunate enough to fly over Alaska many years ago coming from Europe to Japan and had awesome views then of Mt McKinley .

aussiedreamer

Hope I'm not hijacking this thread but I'm interested in opinions on getting the train from anchorage to Denali as part of a tour or hiring a car and doing it ourselves. We've heard very negative reviews of that particular train trip.

A fellow Aussie traveler.

vincenzo32951

IMHO, the train is just OK. If I had it to do over, I'd rent a car and plan a stop or two along the way.

emalloy

We did the train as part of a cruise package and I agree with vincenzo32951, I would rent a car and stop when we wanted to. For example, there was a moose crossing a river and the train went on by and we hardly got the camera focused before it was out of sight and there were spots where we could see Denali, but it just flashed by.

kayd

The train between Anchorage and Denali is very slow, about 8hours. We took it as part of our cruise package and enjoyed it, but I would not do it round trip--just too big a bite out of three or four days. The drive with a couple of stops would be a better use of time.

aussiedreamer

Thank you