How's the cell phone service in Alaska? I have Verizon, the others in my party have ATT. I also planned to bring my Garmin GPS rather than pay for one with the rental car. Do folks use WAZE in Alaska? We will be driving in and around Fairbanks - north to Artic circle day trip? - then heading south to Denali, Homer and Seward. Thanks for suggestions. SWR

Verizon coverage is spotty; ATT is better. No idea about WAZE. You should be okay with either right around Fairbanks. Look here: https://www.whistleout.com/CellPhone...-in-Alaska-USA

Personal opinion, you really don't need GPS in Alaska; there just aren't enough roads. And the major rental car companies won't allow their vehicles on the Haul Road aka Dalton Hwy, so the arctic circle thing is probably out.

You don't need good cell phone service to use cell phone for maps. With google maps on your phone you can download a map of any area ahead of time for use offline.
Your phone will still pick up a gps signal even if there is no cell service.

Like Gardyloo said...gps is really not necessary...there are not a lot of roads. We had gps in our rental car last summer but never used it. If you have a basic little map you will be more than fine.

Roads just go from point to point (and not all that many points ) so hard to get lost.

And do note Gardyloo's note re not being able to drive to the AC.

I did take my handheld GPS with me to Alaska. I used it to find a geocache north of 60* N latitude. I also used it to find my way back to the B&B we stayed at.
The things we saw in Fairbanks were the Univ. of Alaska Fairbanks museum with some small dinosaur skeletons found in Alaska and we also enjoyed Pioneer Park.
The nice B&B was outside North Pole along the Cheena River.

It might be handy in Anchorage. The first time we visited AK I decided I would go on a garden tour of private gardens in an Anchorage neighborhood. I was by myself but finally figured out I could just ask some other gardeners if I could follow their car when they went on to the next garden. I also liked visiting the Title Wave bookstore in Anchorage. On our first visit we had taken the ferry from Bellingham to Skagway then drove to Knik/Wasilla. Just about impossible to get lost despite being a two day drive.

Thanks all for comments on GPS and cell phones. I thought I read (maybe in TripAdvisor) that there were nice day drives we could take in our rental car outside of Fairbanks. Recommendations? If we take a tour to Arctic Circle - which ones do you recommend? by bus? by air?

Why don't you give us an idea of your overall plan and timing? What month will you be visiting? How long overall do you have? What happens before Fairbanks? If you give us a bigger picture we can craft more responsive answers rather than having to guess your plans.

I believe there are still flights from either Anchorage or Fairbanks to Barrow. The Arctic Circle is marked by a sign in a rather barren landscape. It might be good for a photo op but nothing more.
For a day trip outside Fairbanks, you might want to go east to Cheena Hot Springs. I did a virtual geocache about 20 miles north of Fairbanks where I was standing under the Alaska pipeline. Not too far up the Steese Highway, from the pipeline access is a place where you can pan in a tank for gold. There is also a paddle wheel boat on the Cheena River in Fairbanks
The best meal we had in Fairbanks was at the Salmon Bake place next to Pioneer Park.
As for the Kenai Peninsula, one of the dirt roads that I drove was the Skilak road. I was driving a Subaru Outback (4WD) and I made sure to run it through the car wash before taking it back to Anchorage.
We stayed 2 nights at a B&B high above Homer that was about a half mile up a steep dirt road from the nearest pavement.
Outside Seward, I drove to the trail head for the hike up to the toe of the Exit Glacier. There are signs along the trail that show where the toe of the glacier was for the past century.

One of my favorite spots in SE Anchorage that I found using my GPS was GCK0J6 Chocolate Waterfall. The chocolate "waterfall" has 3400 pounds of melted chocolate dropping 20 feet into the pool of chocolate. It is a virtual geocache where a photo of you standing in front of the waterfall confirms your log on geocaching.com.

ATT worked well in Alaska. I also found GPS worked well on Google Maps on my smart phone and came in handy while hiking.