itinerary help with a British Columbia+Alaska road trip
 

Hello everybody

We are a couple from France (30 and 37) and we're traveling to BC and Alaska for 3 weeks this August.
We were having some problems with our itinerary and would very much appreciate some experienced advise.
We plan to start in Vancouver, rent a car (we'll have a car and a tent and are planning to camp most of the time). At the moment our plan looks like this:
My questions are:
We would really like to see a bit of the inside passage. we don't like cruises and don't have much time so we will take a few short ferry rides. in this plan we stop at Juneau, but we heard a lot about Sitka, and would really like to get there too. Problem is, we can't find a ferry timetable that would allow us to be more than half a day in Sitka, and this also means we don't go to Juneau.
Which port in your opinion is the better choice? is it worth it to go to Sitka for 1 day?
Another question- We want to go to Banff national park. this means about 1000 miles detour. If we don't go to Banff, we have more time in Alaska's inside passage. Is the Park really a must see, or it's a better choice to cut it and have more time in the inside passage?
We are big nature lovers and i'm excited about being able to see bears !
with all this in mind- this is our current itinerary.
Thank you in advance for your thoughts !

d1 : Arriving at 18h40 in Vancouver
d2 : Vancouver
3: Vancouver
4: Vancouver - Lillooet - Kamloops (6h30)
5: Kamloops-Banff (6h30)
6: Banff
7: Banff
8: route to Jasper (3h)
9: Jasper
10: route to prince Rupert
11: route
12: Prince Rupert
13: Fort Nelson - Watson Lake (7h)
14: Watson Lake - Skagway (8h)
15: ferry to Skagway + night in Juneau
16: juneau + ferry in the late evening
17: ferry + night on the ferry
18: arriving at prince Rupert + night in Prince Rupert
19: Prince Rupert (treking or excursion)
20: ferry to vancouver island
21: vancouver island
22: vancouver island
23: return to Vancouver flight at 17h50
24: return to Paris à 15h

Thank you!

Here is a link that might help you: http://www.northtoalaska.com/

Some of the areas you have listed can be sparse on lodging options, so one recommendation is to have reservations in advance.

Also, I think you can leave out Banff for this trip to focus on the Alaska/inside passage portion. Here you will likely need more time, as roads are few and you will need also to depend on ferry schedules (or perhaps float planes).

I'd also suggest that you post this in the U.S. forum as well (tagged Alaska), as you will likely get more responses (the Canada forum is pretty quiet).

Thank you. We will try to reserve some places where there aren't campings, and I will also post in other forums.
Tanks again :)

Consider taking the ViaRail "Canadian" from Vancouver to Jasper.
Rent a car in Jasper to go to Banff (or take a Brewster tour). The Canadian only runs out of Vancouver 3 days per week.
There is a ViaRail train called the "Skeena" also 3 times/week that goes from Jasper to Prince Rupert. I think it spends a night in Prince George before starting out for Prince Rupert.
About 5km SW of Jasper near the north end of the Ice Field highway, there is a nice HI Hostel. They have private rooms and mixed dorm rooms. The kitchen and dining area are nice