Summer road trip itinerary advise

Old Apr 21st, 2019, 06:52 AM
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Summer road trip itinerary advise

We are a family of 4 who are finally making it to Alaska for a long-anticipated trip this summer.We are hoping to take the princess cruise from Whittier to Vancouver end July, which stops in Skagway, Juneau and Ketchikan. Before boarding the cruise, we have a week to explore Alaska by road. We really enjoy scenery, wild life , hiking and outdoor activities and are used to long drives. After reading through trip reports and many forum threads, this is what I have come up with

Flight into Anchorage late afternoon and relax for the rest of the day

Day 1 - Following morning rent a car and drive to Seward with stops at Beluga point, Canyon creek, Bear creek view etc. Visit Exit glacier with a short hike.

Day 2 - Kenai fjord cruise

Day 3 - Alaska sea life centre in seward - drive via ‘Hope’, Alaska wildlife conservation centre , to Palmer.

Day 4 - Guided walk of Matanushka glacier with MICA , independence mine via hatcher pass (and the reindeer farm?).

Day 5 – Drive to Valdez with stops at the copper mine and maybe a short hike on the way.

Day 6 - Colombia glacier kayaking trip with Anadyr adventures.

Day 7 - Drive back to Anchorage for the night. (any stops that are recommended?)

Day 8 - Return the car rental. Anchorage heritage center and shuttle to Whittier to board the cruise in the afternoon.

Instead of the long drive to Valdez, we are wondering if Homer would be a better choice to do some kayaking and may be a short trip to see the bears. Although, we are not sure of the high cost for those tours. The lowest I have found is for 595/person to have an hour of viewing bears, which seems an insane amount to spend .
So, advise on this would be appreciated. If the views and the stops on the drive from Palmer to Valdez are worthwhile, we don’t mind the drive.
Or the other option would be to head towards Talkeetna towards Denali.

CRUISE:
01 – Hubbard glacier
02 – Glacier bay national park
03 – Skagway – Rent a car and drive to Yokon valley/emerald lake with a stop at carcross dessert? Would this be the best option?
04 – Juneau - Bus and tram ticket to do the Mt Roberts visitor centre and the nugget falls hike at the Mendenhall glacier.
05 Ketchikan – We have a choice of doing a privately organized Misty Fjord float plane with a 30 min landing or combining Misty fjord with a bear viewing tour at herring creek.

Would the bear viewing be worthwhile here? Or is there better options?

06 – Day at sea and disembark the following morning in Vancouver.

Is it recommended to book tours for the Misty fjord ahead of the trip or should we wait till we arrive at the port and book depending on the weather. Do not want to run the risk of not being able to find a tour though.

Would greatly appreciate advise on how to make the best of the time available to us.



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Old Apr 21st, 2019, 08:39 AM
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Personally I'd pick Homer and Kachemak Bay over the Valdez trek - it's a helluva lot of driving, parts of it pretty scenic and parts not so much. I might also look at kayaking options during the cruise.

Bear flights are expensive whether you do them from Homer or from Anchorage; it's a case of priorities. But in terms of experiences that can't be substituted or duplicated on the cruise or elsewhere, let me throw out an alternative idea just for you to consider.

For around $300 per person round trip, so roughly half the cost of a bear flight, you can fly nonstop on an Alaska Airlines jet from Anchorage to Kotzebue, an Inupiat Eskimo community located on a branch of the Arctic Ocean, and above the arctic circle. At the end of July you won't have 24 hour sunlight, but you will have 24 hour daylight. You can stay at the comfortable Native-owned Nullagvik Hotel - Nulla?vik Hotel :: Home - located across the street from the beach, visit the local Native heritage center, visit a fish camp, and just experience a taste of village life totally unlike what you'll have seen on the road system, and utterly different from what you'll see on the cruise. You won't need a rental car, the hotel will cost around the same as a hotel in the Anchorage area, and you'll come back having seen a face of Alaska that the vast majority of visitors miss.

Or, same idea, but instead visit Nome, the historic gold rush town on the Seward Peninsula, facing the Bering Sea. Nome also has the advantage of possessing a surprisingly extensive road system that radiates from the town out into the bush. You can rent a vehicle or arrange for someone to drive your for a day out into the boonies, where you can see lots of wildlife - muskoxen, moose, caribou and reindeer, foxes, lots and lots of birds, maybe even a bear or two... Nome itself is funky and weird, historic, full of characters like the daft gold miners who dive to the bottom of the Bering Sea to suck up gold (see "Bering Sea Gold" on the Discovery Channel.) Look at Nome Scenic Drives | Driving The Nome Road System and Wildlife Viewing on the Seward Peninsula, Alaska Department of Fish and Game to see what I'm talking about.

I'd do one overnight in Kotzebue or two in Nome if you chose these alternatives, or ditch the other plans (except for Kenai Fjords) and do both Nome and Kotzebue; the same Alaska Airlines flights stop in both, as a sort of "triangle" route.
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Old Apr 21st, 2019, 10:48 PM
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Thanks gardyloo..We are hoping to just use the car to get somewhere , although you suggestion sounds brilliant!

We are wondering if Homer would be similar to seward and therefore Valdez or a drive towards Denali will let us see a different side of Alaska.

Also, would appreciate some advise on the cruise excisions, should we pre book the Misty fjord flight with a travel company (not the cruise) or wait till we get to the port to find one?
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Old Apr 22nd, 2019, 05:19 AM
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Well, comparisons suffer in general; all three towns are "similar" in that they're on relatively sheltered water, have nearby spectacular landscapes, and offer similar diversions. To me, Seward and Valdez feel somewhat "enclosed" by mountains and bays, while Homer has a more open feeling; Cook Inlet is very wide and you don't have the same dramatic "mountains plunging into the sea" that you'll see in Seward and Valdez; however Kachemak Bay is a wonder. Homer has a reputation for being somewhat more counter-cultural than either Seward or Valdez, and of course both Seward and Valdez have quite a lot of big ship traffic - oil tankers in the case of Valdez and cruise ships in Seward. And since you're sailing from Whittier you'll be experiencing some of Prince William Sound as you depart; presumably your ship will sail past some glaciers in College Inlet as you go. (Parenthetically you might consider traveling to Whittier in time to go on a "26 Glacier" cruise before your ship departs - they're good value.)

Re Denali, well, the drive up from Anchorage will expose you to a different kind of scenery than you'll have heading down to Homer or over to Valdez. Most of the drive from Anchorage up to Denali is fairly uninteresting - forest on both sides of the road. There are one or two places where you can see the mountain or other peaks in the Alaska Range, but the real "payoff" views only arise once you're actually inside the park. You're probably aware that access into the park interior is only by bus, and you need an investment of at least 2 1/2 or 3 days - a day there, a day inside the park, and half a day (or more) to return. I would say the "minimum" visit to Denali would require riding the bus at least as far as the Eielson visitor center, which requires an 8-hour return trip on the bus. You'll see wildlife (of course no guarantees) and in late July the chances of seeing the mountain are probably better than the 50-50 odds that generally apply. However you probably know that accommodation around the park is quite pricey and unless you're right at the park entrance, the total day is very long, counting drives to the park bus departure points.

So I'd say the choice of where to spend those days and hours comes down to what sorts of activities you'd like to do. In the case of Seward, you've already touched on things like Kenai Fjords, Exit Glacier, etc., You could go kayaking in Valdez or backtrack to (gorgeous) Thompson Pass and Worthington Glacier; in Homer you could take a ferry across Kachemak Bay to the picturesque villages of Seldovia and/or Halibut Cove. On the drive from Seward to Homer you could stop and see the old Russian church in Ninilchik. Or of course you could choose Denali. In all three cases, you'd have to retrace your route on the roads you used to get there; with your limited time you don't have room for any kind of "loop," which would include a very costly ferry (Valdez to Whittier) in the case of Homer/Seward/Valdez anyway. If you're interested in fishing, both Seward and Homer offer excellent halibut fishing, and in late July some silver salmon ought to be showing up in Resurrection Bay at Seward.

But seeing a "different side" of Alaska on the road system is tough; only a tiny fraction of the state is accessible by road, which is why I recommended the excursions above.

I don't have much experience with cruise excursions (only been on one Alaska cruise; most of my experience comes from living there and working all over the state) but my general feeling is that I'd try to save some money and experience some less touristy things while cruising. For example, in Skagway, you can rent a car (Avis is the only game in town) and drive up into the Yukon. Stop at the Carcross Desert, a tiny subarctic area of striking sand dunes, but then continue up the Klondike Highway toward Whitehorse, but turning around at the Robinson Roadhouse historic site, an old ghost town that you'll probably have to yourselves (except for noisy ground squirrels protesting your presence.) Remember Skagway (population a few hundred) often has four or even five cruise ships, with 2000 - 4000 passengers and crew each, calling on a given day, so you can do the math.

In Juneau I've known people who kayak on the lake at the foot of Mendenhall Glacier, which might be a good location for you to get your paddles wet. In Ketchikan, if you don't want to spend hundreds on flightseeing, you could take the city bus ($2) to Totem Bight State Park, for a walk through the rain forest and totem poles, to get a feel for the marvelous artistic and cultural heritage of the Tlingit people. That's something I'd try to include over the rest of your trip, too; Alaska is much more than moose and mountains; its cultural diversity and human history is remarkable and worth exploring.

Last edited by Gardyloo; Apr 22nd, 2019 at 05:23 AM.
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Old Apr 23rd, 2019, 10:51 PM
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thanks Gardyloo
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