Alaska inside passage with a RV
 

We are on a brief visit from the UK and have booked a RV for 16 days starting mid august picking it up in Calgary and dropping it of in Whitehorse. We plan to go through the Rockies, Jasper etc, the on to Prince Rupert via the Yellowhead Highway.

Our thoughts are to take the ferry to Petersburg spend a couple of days there and then on to Juneau for another couple of days. We would hope to get up to the glaciers and also a whale spotting trip.

Finally a ferry on to Haines, then drive up to Whitehorse via Haines Junction. Is this a more interesting drive than the route from Skagway which is shorter?

What are the roads like on the islands? We are renting a big RV and wonder if we may have problems with parks.

Any ideas or suggestions on where to go and what to see would be much appreciated.

Jon

Hi,

Your trip sounds great. We did a RV trip from Texas to Alaska last July to Oct, 18,000 miles.

The roads on the islands are fine...no problem there. Though for any dates before Aug 24, you might want to get reservations for camp sites. RVing is very popular there and the kids will be out of school till then.

If you RV is over 30 feet long, you may not be able to stay at the state and provincal parks as some have a 30 foot limit. No problem at the private camp grounds.

We did a daily trip report with pictures. If you would like to read about our time at some of the places we visited that you are visiting, go to:

www.northtoalaskajuly2009.blogspot.com

Haines to Haines Junction. ferry to Skagway and on to the ALCAN section...click on Sept on the righthand side and scroll down to Sept 14 then read up.

Banff/Jasper section...click on Aug on the righthand side and scroll down to Aug 8 then read up.

Whitehorse section...click on Aug on the righthand side and scroll down to Aug 16 then read up.

If your RV supplier isn't giving you a copy of "The Milepost" you should try & take a look at it before you start. 2010 issue comes out around March I believe. You can see it described on Amazon UK.

Have a great trip, hope to do similar before too long:)

You should check to see if ferry space for the RV and a cabin is available for the dates you want. It's a popular travel month. When we traveled Bellingham WA to Skagway, I think we reserved in March for a late July trip and I think I had to be flexible with my dates. The vehicle space was easier to get than a cabin.

That is a good point, although they may not require a cabin on all of the separate hops they are doing. Three reservations---for a large RV---might be difficult to get at this point.