Denali or Kenai Alaska - Advice for 8 day trip
 

Which 8 day trip would you recommend: Anchorage, Homer, Hope, Seward OR Anchorage, Denali National Park, Wrangell-St Elias National Park, Valdez. We would be going in early June with Intrepid Travel. Thanks!

I would pick the Kenai trip -- more variety in scenery, great boat trips -- Seward/Homer much nicer than Valdez.

Anchorage/Seward/Homer very easy to do on your own.

May I suggest Anchorage (least amount of your time), Seward, Denali?

We've done it twice and never been disappointed. As ladystack said, very easy to do on your own with a car rental. We did it in an RV rental.

I agree with everyone. There is more to see and do in less miles on a Kenai trip. You only have 8 days. It's about 3 hours just to get to Seward or Kenai from Anchorage. But fabulous scenery along the way. Plan on taking all day and stopping at places like Alyeska (tram to the top) along the way. If you do have time to add more places, go north of Anchorage to places like Independence Mine. Not very far from Anchorage. But once you get past Wasilla heading to Denali there isn't much until you get to Talkeetna.

We did both with that amount of time and a rental car. Landed in Anchorage in the afternoon, next AM drove to Denali, stayed 3 nights, drove back towards Anchorage, spent 3 nights in Seward (and then picked up a cruise).

But to actually answer your question - unless you are serious hikers, 8 days is too long at Denali. Can not comment on Valdez, because we regret missing that. Depends on your driving tolerance - there is not a lot to see between Anchorage and Denali. You can spend an entire day taking a bus into the Park, see a little of the local area. But then what? One argument for, is that I can't imagine going to Alaska and not seeing Denali.

As far as Kenai, you could more easily spend that amount of time touring that area. Cute little genuine fishing towns, sealife, day cruises, glaciers.

So if you must pick one, I would agree with above saying Kenai. But consider doing both on your own with a car rather than a tour.