kdd

Hi All,

Could I get some advice for a Alaska trip itinerary this summer. This is our first time there and it seems that there is so much to do that one has to pick and choose. We will be traveling from New York. Want to keep the trip to about 8-10 days (max 12 days inclusive of the travel from/to NY).

Things that I am keen on including at a minimum are the following:

1. Kenai fjords
2. Glacier Bay and cruise (any recommendations, I would not like to be on one of those inflatable raft type boats, something a bit more above water and solid please!)
3. A coastal trail journey on Alaskan railways (Anchorage to Seward?)
4. Denali National Park
5. A flight to land on a glacier (not helicopter) (Ruth glacier or other?)

From NY would we fly to Anchorage or Juneau for this itinerary and how would we sequence this to make it optimal and not go back and forth.

Would we fly between ports like Anchorage to Juneau or other options?

This trip will be self guided and self drive except for excursions like cruise around Glacier bay etc.

Please help!

Thanks.

kdd

Folks, one more things -

If we use a combination of train, car and flights, I presume we can drop off the rental car at various points e.g. we drive from Talkeetna to Denali National park, on the way back drop off the car at the train station and take the Denali star train to Anchorage? Can these things be done easily?

dfrostnh

You only have 8-10 days. Perhaps try mapping out time to get places. You could fly to Anchorage and then take train to Seward and take a Kenai Fjords day trip. You will probably have to overnight in Anchorage, next day take the train, following day take the cruise (we liked the longest one so you need to be ready to get on the boat in the morning) and then what do you do next? If you rent a car to drive to Seward which I think is a great idea, you'll be seeing some of the most spectacular scenery in the world. With a car, you could stop at places like the visitors center at Portage, the wild life center, take the tram up Alyeska. This could easily take a whole day OR be a 3-4 hour drive.

Visiting Denali from Anchorage probably takes at least 3 days. You could stop in Talkeetna and/or do a detour to Independence Mine on the way, all day in Denali the next and then a third day to go back to Anchorage.

Easily 6-7 days just for that without considering Juneau. From Seward you could drive to the other side of the Kenai Peninsula to visit Homer. I think you probably have the best chance of seeing moose in the Kenai/Soldotna area. I liked the Pratt Museum. The view as you approach Homer is great so you might want to pull over for a great photo op. I think I like exploring Homer the best. Flying over a glacier was enough excitement for us and it was from Homer. Very small plane! We did a commuter flight from Anchorage to Kenai but it wasn't scenic, just an easy way to get to Kenai where we were based one trip.

gail

If you want to see Kenai and Denali, no way to avoid going back and forth - the are in opposite directions from Anchorage. We did 8 days on land using itinerary similar to dfrostnh above, but were spending time prior to cruise so did the glacier thing from the cruise. The only way to reach Juneau is by air or sea - no roads in/out. We enjoyed walking around Seward since it felt like real Alaska. The Kenai Fjords day boat trip was a highlight of trip. Anchorage not so much. I do not know of any way to land on a glacier other than a helicopter which both scared the hell out of me and was an incredible experience. Drive from Anchorage to Denali is rather boring, but gives you a sense of the vastness of Alaska. Keep in mind that the only way to get well into Denali is by old school bus; glad we did that, but 13 hours on a school bus is a lot. If you are height phobic, you should know that the road is narrow, unpaved and without guard rails. The drivers are experienced, but hanging at the edge of a cliff while 2 busses pass each other is not for the timid. Still worth it - saw lots of baby animals and scenery.

sludick

We're going to Alaska this summer also. We've been twice before, only with a few days on land before catching a southbound cruise ship. I found that the logistics of getting from place to place on a self-guided vacation can be time-consuming (and expensive). So, keep that in mind as you make travel arrangements from place to place - we ran into the reality that some stops are hours of layover, if not overnight.

If you do want to go to Glacier Bay, and not on a cruise ship, you most likely will be looking at an overnight stay. (You'll make the connection through Juneau, so could plan on some time there.) There is Glacier Bay Lodge, but also some other bed and breakfast accommodations in Gustavus that looked nice. We will be staying at the Lodge, which is about 10 miles from Gustavus. You will not be driving yourself while at Gustavus/Glacier Bay, but looking at shuttles of some type. For a day cruise within Glacier Bay, this is a catamaran that seats over 100 passengers - so not a rubber raft. https://www.visitglacierbay.com/tour...-bay-day-tour/

We've taken the train from Anchorage to Seward twice also, and enjoyed it. It leaves Anchorage early morning, and leaves Seward around dinner time. This is a 4-hour trip one way.

kdd

How does this itinerary look?

Is there anything interesting to see and do in Anchorage. I have planned 2 nights in Anchorage on the return from Denali but instead could do one night in Talkeetna if that is more interesting and just be back in Anchorage to fly out to NY.

Day 1 Fly from NY to Anchorage night in Anchorage
Day 2 Take train to Seward night in Seward
Day 3 Kenai Fjords night stay in Seward
Day 4 Fly to Juneau ; Glacier hike; night stay Juneau
Day 5 Glacier Bay cruise night stay Juneau
Day 6 Juneau to Talkeetna flight, night in Talkeetna
Day 7,8,9 Denali National Park (3 nights) Denali National Park
Day 10 Anchorage (Denali star train to Anchorage) or Talkeetna?
Day 11 Anchorage (Talkeetna?)
Day 12 To NY from Anchorage

Gardyloo

Okay, here's the deal. The road system in Alaska is very small and limited compared to the size of the state. In addition, population centers are small and distant from each other. So things that you might expect in the lower 48 states, like rental car drop-off points outside the "big" cities, don't exist. And one-way rentals, like Seward to Anchorage, or Anchorage to Fairbanks, bring jaw-dropping one-way surcharges, often doubling or tripling the base rental cost.

For example, there's no commercial air service in Talkeetna or Seward. Both can be reached only by road or rail from Anchorage. To go from Juneau to Talkeetna means flying to Anchorage, then driving a few hours or taking the train (which is infrequent and not especially scenic.) The flights from Juneau to Anchorage take two hours and the round trip will cost between $350 and $400. The idea of flying into Anchorage, then taking a separate trip down to Juneau and back is extremely awkward and expensive. The two towns are 600 miles apart, like New York to Halifax. So if Glacier Bay is a must-see (and see below, there are alternatives) then flying initially into Juneau, or stopping there on the way home, is the way to do it, not midway through the trip.

This year there are some additional concerns with your plan. Private vehicles are not allowed into the interior of Denali National Park; beyond a certain point near the visitor center, only buses approved by the National Park Service and run by park vendors are allowed on the single gravel road that winds through the park. Getting to popular destinations within the park such as the Eielson Visitor Center or Wonder Lake requires a very long bus ride, usually in converted school buses (8 hours round trip to Eielson, 12 to Wonder Lake.)

The problem this year is that roughly 45 miles into the park, well before Eielson, the road has been eroding and is in danger of being closed by landslides. The National Park Service is trying to analyze the situation to determine when, or even if, the road can be open past that point for the buses. Because it's still deep winter in the park, with snow and subzero temperatures impeding things, this analysis is unlikely to be done until farther into the spring (which arrives very late in the Alaska bush.) For the time being, the NPS is saying the road won't be available for onward travel before June 15, but this might well turn out to be optimistic, or, God forbid, even impossible. The risk that the interior of the park might not be available at all for vehicles this year is very real.

So getting back to your plans, what does all this mean?

Well first, let's talk about Glacier Bay. Yes, it's very beautiful, but there are numerous beautiful tidewater glaciers one can see in Alaska. For example, just down the road from Anchorage is the strange port town of Whittier, accessed through a combined rail/road tunnel. In Whittier one can take one of several boat tours to see tidewater glaciers in Prince William Sound, mainly around the College Inlet complex. For example, the "26 Glacier" tour - https://phillipscruises.com/cruises/...ier-cruise.php - can be done as a day trip from Anchorage, or as an easy stopover en route to Seward.

Glacier Bay -



College Fjord (from Whittier)



Kenai Fjords (from Seward)



Glacier landings: You definitely don't need to go to Southeast Alaska to land on a glacier; in fact, this is a good "fall back" option from Anchorage, in case access into Denali is limited. Flightseeing operators in Anchorage, such as Rust's - https://www.flyrusts.com/flightseein...national-park/ - offer combined Denali flightseeing and glacier landings which could make for a "twofer." There are also operators from Talkeetna that can offer this for Denali, but IMO the Anchorage departures are preferable, because weather often limits flying around Denali, and flying from Anchorage there are more options - glacier landings on glaciers closer to Anchorage or around Prince William Sound, for example. So if the weather's crummy at Denali maybe it's more flyable someplace else. From Talkeetna, it's Denali or nothing.

So I'd probably do a reboot of your plans in light of some more research on logistics. Timing is also an issue; as I said spring comes late and autumn comes early in Alaska, and weather is always a crapshoot. Half the people visiting Denali National Park never see the mountain because of clouds. On the other hand, by mid-late August the fall colors on the tundra in Denali National Park are stunning, and the mosquitoes (which can drive you nuts in May-June) have gone.

And here's a picture I took of Juneau one July day a few years ago.



With ten days on the ground I'd probably focus on Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula, with three days allocated to Denali at one end or the other (a day to get there, one to visit the park interior, one to get back.) However I'd monitor the National Park Service website regarding progress or forecasts for the road - https://www.nps.gov/dena/learn/nature/pretty-rocks.htm and if things look dicey, have a fallback "plan B" in mind.

Google the places on these maps for some ideas on a driving tour of Southcentral Alaska that doesn't include Denali, just in case. https://goo.gl/maps/PGDeFkBFMeDAkpEa9 and
https://goo.gl/maps/PDo5fqEowTHrPbiNA

Happy planning!

dfrostnh

We didn't have much time to spend in Anchorage but I like overviews like the trolley tour. I think my favorite site was seeing Lake Hood - think of a huge marina only it's sea planes not boats. (well, maybe there were some boats but I didn't notice them) I'm a gardener so one trip I happened to see an Anchorage neighborhood was having a garden tour. I had fun. The last stop was an old log cabin and the owner had a keg in the garden. The homeowners thought it was really nice that I was going on the tour. I also like farmers markets so I enjoyed buying some edibles at the Anchorage market. Local jams and jellies made nice souveniers. Pizza and a beer flight at the Moose's Tooth was tasty and there was a nice view plus an easy off/on to the Seward Highway. Title Wave books was a great place to find books about Alaska both fiction and non-fiction.

Talkeetna is very small but more like old Alaska while Anchorage, Kenai and Soldotna are large with shopping centers, suburban areas, etc.

I think Gardylou made a great suggestion to stop in Juneau on the way home. Unfortunately, sounds like this summer might be the summer to skip Denali.

sludick

I agree that Glacier Bay is probably not the best fit for this trip. However, if you do want to include it as a day time as shown in your itinerary above, you would need to get a bit creative with transportation. Alaska Air is the commercial carrier that flies in/out of Gustavus, but only once per day (afternoon). You could take the Alaska marine ferry in the early morning from Juneau, but it only runs on certain days, which you will need to check once the schedule for this year is out. Finally, there is the seaplane option - here is a link for that: https://www.flyalaskaseaplanes.com/d...ions/Gustavus/

Our trip planning involved 12 separate flight segments, a 5 or 6 hour layover in Anchorage between Nome and Juneau, and an overnight between Juneau and Gustavus. There are flights in the summer leaving Anchorage around the clock, but I am not a night owl and didn't want to fly at, say, 12:40 am. So that was the very best schedule I could get. I say this as a follow-up to Gardyloos's excellent and detailed advice, just to give you a better mental picture.

kdd

Thank you. Great advice. I need to go back to the drawing board and do some re-planning. The lodging options inside the park are limited and super expensive. Is it worth the splurge? Typically our experience in other national parks is that staying inside the park makes the experience much more special and immersive. Wondering if it is the same for Denali as well?

Other than using Anchorage as the start and end points, are these things to do in Anchorage itself. Should we plan any time at all for this?

Thanks

sludick

By all means, try to stay in Glacier. Have you checked prices in Juneau and other areas you will be visiting? Glacier Bay Lodge was actually almost reasonable compared to other lodging we had to book (in Kotzebue, Nome, Sitka, etc.) Alaska is pricey. They only have a few months for tourist season, and goods need to be shipped in. Prepare for higher food costs as well.

sludick

Anchorage has a great museum that showcases the indigenous culture, the Gold Rush, art, history, etc. There are other attractions I'm sure, but it mainly struck me as another largish city.

Gardyloo

You still need to decide on timing. Saying "this summer" is not enough information - things can be VERY different between June and September.

As for the high-end lodges within Denali, this is a matter of opinion, but the choice should be made in light of (a) the chance that they might not be available when you are planning to travel (when?) (b) the chance that they might not be accessible at all because of the road issues, and (c) most of all, depending on what you want to do while you're there. If you don't want to go on hikes, for example, you might find that multiple days in Denali wouldn't be the best use of your scarce time. Or, what if the mountain is socked in the whole time? (It happens frequently.) Yes, there will be wildlife around (maybe close, maybe not so close) but again, a day inside Denali is a day you can't be somewhere else. Only you can decide on your personal priorities.

As for what to do in Anchorage, well, a local saying is that the best thing about Anchorage is that it's 20 minutes from Alaska. Maybe nowadays that closer to 30 or 40 minutes, but you get the idea. In addition to being a good base for some terrific day trips - the Wildlife Conservation Center, Girdwood/Alyeska and Whittier glacier tours in one direction, Matanuska Glacier, Hatcher Pass and Independence Mine in the other, there's plenty to do in the city itself. There are hikes up into Chugach State Park right from parking lots in the city, the terrific Alaska Native Heritage Center, a great museum, as mentioned, bird (and maybe moose) watching at Potter Marsh right on the south side of the city, hikes or bikes along the coastal trail (more moose, maybe) and shopping for Native Alaska arts and crafts at the fabulous gift shop in the Alaska Native Medical Center.

You can walk or ride around Lake Hood, the world's largest seaplane base, while you watch the floatplanes come and go, or - better - get on one of them for a sightseeing trip to Denali, or out over the ice fields surrounding Prince William Sound, or over the glaciers of the Chugach range, or across Cook Inlet to volcano and bear country. You can fish for salmon in downtown Anchorage or at several places within an hour's drive or so; attend the city's downtown open air marketplace on weekends, or farmers markets around town. There are fun restaurants and bars, interesting places to shop, city parks in which to enjoy daylight that lasts deep into the night. For a city its size, Anchorage has a hell of a lot of things going on. And best, it's - well, under an hour - from Alaska.

One thing you might also think about as a stand-in for Denali if that doesn't work out, is to fly on an Alaska Airlines jet up to a bush community in the north. For around $350 you can fly round trip from Anchorage to Nome, the historic gold mining community on the Bering Sea, from which there are roads leading out into the bush - lots of wildlife, historic sites - for a seriously "off the beaten path" experience. Or for around the same price, you can fly round trip to Kotzebue, an Inupiat Eskimo community located on an arm of the Arctic Ocean. Kotzebue's above the arctic circle, so you'll have 24 hours of daylight, if not 24 hours of sunlight (the 24 hours of sunlight lasts from early June to early July, but it doesn't get dark even if the sun sets briefly.)

In both those communities there are good hotels that won't cost much more than comparable ones in Anchorage, so the difference is the plane fare. Even then, you won't need a rental car for those days, so the total out-of-pocket might not be that bad. Mybe worth considering.

But you need to pin down a month before anything else. Remember spring comes late and autumn comes early. There are mosquitoes in the spring and early summer away from salt water, but the weather can turn cooler by mid-August. And accommodation fills up, especially in high-demand areas. So hit the books and make some choices.

sludick

We are following Gardyloo's advice above in large part, visiting Kotzebue and Nome. Lodging is expensive relative to where we live, but does seem comparable to Anchorage norms. $225-$279/night for lodging throughout our trip. Car in Nome was a flat $150/day, and they are scarce, so we did jump on that quickly as well.

We only went to Denali once. My takeaway is that to really appreciate it, you need to be willing to spend a good bit of time out of your vehicle, hiking and camping, and more than just a day drive-through. We did see the mountain, though. We were there early, though (latter May), and it was still a bit snowy. We saw more moose in Anchorage, along the highway and in parking lots. The drive from Anchorage toward Seward along the Turnagain Arm was spectacular.

mlgb

Quite honestly, I'd look into a 7 or 8 day one way cruise between Anchorage and Vancouver. With an overnight in Seward before the cruise to allow for a Resurrection Bay or Kenai Fjords cruise. . You can do the train between Anchorage and Seward.

I like Holland America which has a southbound cruise itinerary that stops in small town Haines rather than Skagway. It's a bit difficult to figure them out from the HAL website, I use Vacations to Go and the Crew Center website. I don't think their northbound cruises stop in Haines.

EG Westerdam or Noordam would do Glacier Bay and Haines. They also offer a land package to Denali with the one way cruises. I've heard from older passengers that the pace on the land portion was a little brutal but might be okay for a young family.

Haines, Alaska Cruise Ship Schedule 2020 | Crew Center

For Vacations to Go, sign up on their website to access their seach function.

gbelle1

I agree with a lot of what has been discussed, so I will only add ...
the size of Alaska is about twice the size of Texas. Driving distances, as others have said, are far apart.

Here's an idea of the size of Alaska imprinted on the lower 48 https://www.alaska.org/how-big-is-alaska

If you are planning on doing a lot of driving, get a copy of The Milepost. https://www.themilepost.com/

kdd

I thought Kenai fjords would be a nice calm boat trip like Milford sound in NZ but I am reading reports of rough seas etc. Is it worth taking just the 5 hours shorter trip around calmer Resurrection Bay which is meant to see marine life, or should we brave the 6 hours to Kenai fjords and the glaciers. Alternatively, maybe do the 5 hours marine tour in Seward, and the 26 Glacier tour on PWS from Whittier?

Gardyloo

The Kenai Fjords cruises include time on open ocean coming and going; seasickness isn't uncommon. The longer Fjords trips are generally regarded as offering more wildlife sighting, but things are never guaranteed. The glacier cruises out of Whittier are on much calmer water.

Y'know, I find myself wondering if a cruise might not be a better choice, given your interests and limitations. Because of the Denali issues this might not be the best year to plan a driving tour of southcentral and interior Alaska. Just as a thought experiment, what if you did a round-trip cruise out of Vancouver, preceded or followed by a few days in British Columbia or Washington State? The cruises are affordable, very comfortable, and offer countless options for group or self-driving excursions during port calls. They're all for seven nights, so you could add some nights before or after the cruise - maybe Vancouver Island, or Whistler, or a wine tour of central British Columbia, or cross the border and visit Olympic National Park in Washington, etc.

Or, look at some of the small-boat cruises out of Juneau. These are more expensive on a per-day basis, but they will take you into much more remote places than the big cruise lines can reach. You could include some bear viewing or glacier hiking options, maybe spend a few days in smaller Southeast Alaska communities bypassed by most cruise ships, such as Sitka or Petersburg, or visit funky Tenakee Springs.

Just a thought, anyway.

kdd

I now totally understand why cruises to Alaska are so popular, but that is not for me. I am fretting about 5 hours on the water in Kenai fjords, a cruise like that would be one long worry trip and I would not enjoy it at all!

I have worked out another itinerary as below which does not have much back and forth (except once to Anchorage) and avoids having to rent a car, drop off etc.

It is only the last leg that we are wondering if we should swap the Glacier bay with PWS. Glacier bay seems like a special place so I still have my heart set on it and since there is an option to fly back to NY from Gustavus via Alaska airlines it is doable, but husband is leaning towards PWS

Day 1 Fly from NY to Anchorage
Day 2 Take train to Seward take cruise Marine Tours - 5 hours wildlife or 6 hours Kenai Fjords tour, not decided which one
Day 3 Seward - Godwin Glacier Dogsled tour? Seward heli tours
Day 4 Park Connection coach to Talkeetna
Day 5 Around Talkeetna
Day 6 Morning Park Connection bus to Denali, stay in Denali cabins?
Day 7 Denali NP using park buses and short hikes
Day 8 To Anchorage - Denali Star train
Day 9 Anchorage
Day 10 Fly to Gustavus via Juneau stay in Glacier bay lodge
Day 11 Glacier Bay Boat tour
Day 12 Gustavus to NY via Juneau and Seattle 5 pm flight from Gustavus to Juneau
Day 13 arrive in NY 7:30 am

Does this work better logistically?

sludick

This does sound much better. I see you've done your research checking Alaska Air, as well. Your choices are limitless, and you've chosen the ones that appeal most for this trip. Staying in Glacier Bay has been on our bucket list for a long time, too, and we've seen it from a cruise ship twice. I say just go for it. Get those rooms booked ASAP.