How crowded in August--Denali, Seward, Homer
 

Hi- We are planning a last-minute trip for the last half of August. We hope to visit Denali as well as the Homer and Seward areas. Realistically, what kinds of tourist crowds can we expect? If these areas will be too packed with other tourists, we might want to try again some other time. <BR><BR>We'd like some advice from you Alaska experts!<BR><BR>Thanks,<BR>Byrd<BR>

Homer will be tolerable and Seward can become crowded when tour ships are in. Because touring inside Denali Park is based on buses, the actual density of tourists is managed by the Park Service and vendors, i.e., it's "capacity controlled." That's not to say that there won't be clumps of tourists, sometimes great big clumps, at the park center or various spots along the interior road, but it won't be like other national parks where cars and RVs and throngs of folks are stopped willy nilly and spread out all over the countryside. Plus, Denali Park is enormous. <BR><BR>In general I'd suggest visiting these places as late in the summer as you can - early to mid September can be glorious at Denali Park, and not bad on the Kenai either.

Thanks, John-<BR><BR> September does sound wonderful, but we have to take this trip in August for several reasons, the most important being the imminent arrival of a grandchild! The question of crowds came up when we read a comment about the "RV traffic jams" on the highway between Anchorage and Denali.<BR> I think we'll probably still make the trip, but we do know what to expect.<BR><BR>Byrd

We visited those areas last summer in the last two weeks of August. We booked most of our accomodations in May, so I can't attest to whether those will be tough. But when we visited Homer it was not crowded at all (this was around August 24th or so). We made the trip from Anchorage to Denali without incident. There was some construction along the way that lasted about 20 minutes, but no R-V backups or anything like that. The last 2 hours of the trip are beautiful, and you may even catch a glimpse of Denali on the way. Like others have said, access to the Park itself is somewhat controlled. We took a 7 hour bus tour and loved it. Crowds were not a problem at all on our Alaska trip (Aug. 18-31, 2001).

We were unprepared for how very crowded the Kenai Peninsula was. One long line of cars everywhere you go. But, I can't blame them. I could spend my whole time on the Kenai.<BR><BR>Anchorage was also very busy but pretty easy to get around in.<BR><BR>Maybe going late as you are it will be better.