My husband & I are planning to visit Alaska this summer. We do not want to take a cruise. We were thinking of taking a ferry to see the beautiful Alaskan coastline. Can you offer any information or tips?

My tip: read a book on visiting Alaska. Decide what places may or may not interest you. When you have a specific question to ask, return and ask it here.

IMO it is hard to read "about" Alaska to decide what you want to do or see.
Although I started out reading the AAA tour book.Then to the library--
the reference department was very helpful finding articles in magazines about other people and their trips.
You can start out by visiting the Alaska Marine Highway web site.
Word of advice --IF you do plan to use
AMH and expect to get a cabin you have to get reservations as soon as they accept them for 2003. Although I know it can vary but May is usually pretty cold for Alaska.
Also do a "search" on this site --for Alaska and you'll get a view of other peoples questions...
Good Luck

Cruising is not a bad option for a quick overview of Alaska, many cruises are 1 way North or Southbound. then you could ferry in the opposite direction. My husband didnt want to take an Alaskan cruise either, 2years later he cant stop talking about the wonder of it all.

Going by the Marine Highway system (the ferry) is a great idea. Unlike cruises where you must decide which one thing or short tour you wish to take in each port, you can get off the ferry and stay a night or two in each of the ports. There is plenty to do in Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway in particular. Unfortuanately we missed Sitka, which a lot of people rave about. Although we drove one way, up through the Yukon and entered Alaska from the Dawson City area, we returned via the ferry all the way to Bellingham, and we were glad we did. We spent a month in Alaska itself, but if I were reducing the trip, I'd limit it to the southern part, eliminating Fairbanks and points north.

I think you have to break Alaska up into at least three parts -- the inner passage area (seen by ferry); the southwest -- Kenai, Anchorage, Denali, etc.; and the rugged north. Do you want to just concentrate on one of these areas?

Denali is really beautiful, but best appreciated by getting to the far interior of the park (90 miles or about 6 hours by bus) for at least a night or two. There is much to do on the Kenai Peninsula also, and the drive from Anchorage to the Kenai is one of the prettiest in all of Alaska.

Are you planning to take a car on the ferry? Or just do the coastal area and rely on public transportation? How much time do you have in total?

The ferry starts taking reservations anyday now. Check their website to see. (Alaska Marine Highway) We were very lucky to get reservations in March for a late July trip from Bellingham to Skagway. It would be interesting to hear from someone who has taken one of the other routes. The ferry is no frills but it probably a much better deal because when the orca's swim next to the ship you can see them a lot better than being on a big cruise ship. I think it helps to read ahead. Our visit to Skagway was more interesting because we had read about the gold rush days (Women of the Klondike). Just seeing an Alaskan license plate depicting the hike up the Chilkhoot Trail reminds me of the stories. We drove about 800 miles between Skagway and Anchorage. A lot of driving but we passed some glacier lakes and incredible acres of fireweed in bloom in where there had been a forest fire years ago. I missed seeing some giant cabbages but as a gardener, I loved seeing people's gardens and the hanging baskets planted in public areas. If we drive from Anchorage to Seward again, we'll check the tide schedule first. At low tide I don't think you'll get to see any whales. My husband and I both enjoyed the biography of a young teacher who taught in a remote town in the early 1900s "Tisha". I would also recommend reading the biography of Joe Reddington to get an idea of life in Alaska in just the recent past. You can find some vacation suggestions on the Anchorage Daily News website links www.adn.com. Hope you have a great time. If you do a search here, there was a recent discussion about traveling by ferry.

We have done the ferry round-trip, twice, and loved it! As mentioned above, you can visit various places for a few days, then pick up the next ferry to continue your journey. You need to book soon, particularly if you want a stateroom. If you are adventurous, you can book passage only, then stake out a chaise lounge chair for sleeping. Some folks even pitch a tent on the upper aft deck!

I would start out by purchasing the latest "Milepost" guidebook, which is very informative and is re-published annually with the latest info (http://www.themilepost.com/themilepost.html).

There are various side trips that make this trip really worthwhile. We loved Sitka, on beautiful Baranoff Island. You can rent kayaks there and tour around the harbor or go overnight to a nearby island.

If you can afford it, you should take a cruise/tour from Juneau to Glacier Bay. We did this and thought it was a high point of our trip. Alternatively, you can fly there and take a boat tour out of Gustavus, in the National Park. One of the best things we've ever done was rent a kayak, have it carried out to the end of one of the Glacier Bay arms, then get dropped off for a couple of days. We paddled about, exploring glaciers, inlets, and cliffs, then got picked back up at a pre-determined spot.

A less ambitious alternative, which is still awfully nice, is to take a tour of Misty Fjords out of Ketchikan. We really liked Ketchikan, but it is a small isolated spot, and you probably would not want to spend more than a couple of days here.

Have a great time!

You should plan on staying in Junea for at least a couple of days, visiting the Mendenhall Glacier, perhaps taking a fun float trip, or perhaps taking a flight up onto the icefields.

Many people use the ferry terminus at Skagway as a jumping-off place to interior Alaska. That's fine, but if you intend to turn around and head back. you should do some exploring first. There is a historic railroad that goes up next to Chilkoot Pass. That was fun, but on the next trip, we rented a car and explored the Yukon for two days. I would highly recommend doing this, and also suggest that you book the car in advance, as there aren't a heck of a lot of rental cars in this tiny town.

The main "problem" (if you want to call it that) with an all-ferry itinerary is that the majority of the boats traveling the Inside Passage terminate at Haines, from which it's a two-day car ride to Southcentral Alaska (Anchorage, Kenai Peninsula, etc.) Unless you take a car on the ferry, which is expensive and which obviously requires that you drive and/or ferry back, you're stuck in Southeast Alaska, which is beautiful but hardly representative of the rest of the state.

There are a couple of alternatives to this approach. One is to time your trip to take advantage of the monthly "cross-Gulf" connecting ferry services from Southeast to Seward. This allows you to ferry all the way from the Lower 48 to Southcentral, albeit with a day or so crossing big water in the Gulf of Alaska. The AMHS website will describe this service.

Another alternative is to focus your coastline ferrying in Southcentral itself, by means of the Prince William Sound and/or Kodiak ferries. This way you can fly to Anchorage, explore the Kenai or interior areas, and still get a ferry-based exposure to the wonderful coastal scenery, except this time it will be Prince William Sound or Cook Inlet instead of the Inside Passage. Equally beautiful scenery, but with the advantage of there being connecting roads so that you can integrate the ferry with car-based tourism.

Whatever your choice, the best time to start planning your trip is right away; tourist infrastructure is not especially thick on the ground in parts of Alaska, so preparation should start early. Happy planning!

Both Patrick and John are correct. Alaska is a huge state and, if you want to see it, you need to be creative in choosing your conveyences.

Most often, I tell people to focus on an area. Every year we see and hear from people that didn't see this or that. But, what they don't tell you is that they were trying to fit a land mass 2.5 times the size of Texas into 10 days. So, at 65 mph on the road, and all of the sleeping time aboard ship, it is no wonder they didn't see anything but scenery....which is nice, but not all that the state offers.

Most people want to see wildlife. And, as an Alaskan resident that spends enormous amount of time "in the field" I can assure you that the issue is one of time... or, if you're lucky, timing.

Were it me, I don't think I'd do Southeast AND mainland Alaska in the same trip.

Stop, watch, listen.

I traveled to Alaska with Camp Alaska
a couple of years ago and it was the
most memorable trip of my life. They have a website that explains everything.
Their guides are very knowledgable and the cost is in line with a budget traveler like myself.