elgordo

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to come up with rough itinerary for a 10-day trip to Alaska. Unfortunately, I'm having a difficult time determining accurate drive times. For example, Mapquest tells me it's a seven hour trip from Seward to Homer, while MSN claims it's under 3 and 1/2 hours (!)

If anyone can give me rough estimates for the following drive times, I would really appreciate the help:

Anchorage to Seward
Anchorage to Homer
Seward to Homer
Palmer to Valdez

Thank you in advance!

happytrailstoyou

I find www.maps.yahoo.com gives accurante information. Click "driving directions," and enter the starting place and destination.

Pat2003

elgordo, I feel your frustration. I gave up on mapquest for getting me a any place after we were send from Phoenix airport to our hotel in Tucson the longest and most complicated way.
I rely on www.freetrip.com now. It is always very reliable.
Anchorage - Seward 121 miles, 2:43
Anchorage - Homer 218 miles, 4:47
Homer - Seward 171 miles, 3:36
Palmer - Valdez 258 miles, 5:24
Keep in mind, these times may change depending on traffic, road construction, weather. Further, since this is your first trip to Alaska you will stopp many times during your road trip.

happytrailstoyou

Point granted, but how many routes can there be between Anchorage and Seward, etc.?

Pat2003

I got it, happytrailstoyou. From Anchorage you can take Seward Highway or Old Seward Highway or Muldoon Rd and connect to any above or Lake Ottis Parkway or Minnesota Drive to O'Malley Rd. Well, there are few other options from Anchorage depending where one is coming from. If from the airport, we take Airport Rd. to Minnesota to O'Malley to Old Seward Highway to Seward Highway

Patrick

Something else to thing about when considering times. Are you going in July or January?

ronkala

I have to agree with Pat about freetrip.com. I have been using it for the last six years and it is amazing how many times their predicted time and miles came close to my actual distance and driving time. The other good info from them is the hotel listings along the way.

banana_split_infntve

Excuse me,

That is really something else. I just compared a few of the routes I plan to take on my next big trip using Yahoo! Maps and MapQuest and FreeTrip. That's a great site at FreeTrip. It has the time cues for your trips like a TV broadcast sheet.

Thank you,

Elena

happytrailstoyou

Thanks for letting us know about freetrips.com--a good site to know about, though it gives essentially the same information as maps.yahoo.com.

One thing I like about the maps.yahoo.com is that, when planning a long trip with many destinations, information about subsequent destinations can be found quickly by scrolling down. For instance, after getting info for Seattle-Ashland, I scrolled down and entered "San Francisco" in the place where "Seattle" was, clicked, and got the info for the second stage of the trip. Ditto for subsequent destinations--Yosemite, Death Valley, Las Vegas. etc.

elgordo

In response to Patrick's question about the time of year - I'm leaving on Thursday. Does the time of year have a significant impact on drive times in Alaska?

Also, has anyone made these drives themselves? Considering the vast differences between the Mapquest and MSN estimates, I'd love to hear some first-hand accounts - thanks!

dwooddon

Elgordo: Time of year can have significant impact. Early spring and late fall are probably the fastest. Summer times are impacted by slow vehicles and construction delays. Winter drives are impacted by weather and road conditions.

As an example, last winter or the one before, avalanches shut down the Seward Highway along Turnagain Arm and the drive times from Anchorage to either Seward or Homer had to be measured with a calendar instead of a clock.

I have just driven each of these routes and the times given by Pat2003 are pretty accurate. However, as someone else mentioned, you'll want to stop many times. The scenery on each of these routes is seriously spectacular.

Pat2003

We driven all these routes several times. When we drove the first time from Anchorage to Valdez it took us 9 hours with all those stops and lunch break.

elgordo

Just wanted to thank everyone for their insights - I really appreciate your help. Looking forward to leaving for Alaska this Thursday - will post a trip report when I get back.

Thanks again!!

Pat2003

ttt for CLynnWeg

CLynnWeg

Thanks Pat! Still working on the extra night, might have to spend in over the 4th to be able to reserve a room!

MileKing

The differences between Mapquest and FreeTrip are huge in some cases. I am planning a trip to New Mexico later this year and have been running some comparisons between the two. Not sure who to believe. Here's an example:

Chama, NM to Taos, NM
1:39 on FreeTrip
2:09 on Mapquest
Route is exactly the same on both and mileage difference is less than 2 miles. A half-hour difference in trip time on an approximately two-hour trip?

MileKing

Checked out maps.yahoo.com which has also been referenced here. Same trip that I posted above clocks in at 2:33! Same route, same mileage. That's almost an hour more than freetrip.com.

dwooddon

I've found that the time estimate on the mapping programs depends on which route is selected. Mapquest (on-line) and Microsoft Streets and Trips (software) seem to select less than logical routings sometimes, thus creating longer than necessary time estimates.

I'll try freetrip.com the next time I have a route to plan.

dfrostnh

You can find mileages in the free tourist guide for Anchorage. As far as Mapquest, I recently got the wrong directions from them. I'm not sure what the problem was, maybe two adjacent towns in CT share a zip code but I got directions to the wrong town. I had noticed it kept changing the name of the town. Also, last summer I tried to get directions for a visiting friend to get from Concord NH to somewhere in Maine. I KNOW Rt 4 would have been the best way to get over to the coast but Mapquest kept telling us to go further south to Rt 101, probably 30 minutes of extra driving. Thanks for the tip on the other site. I don't trust Mapquest anymore.