My husband and I are planning to do at least two weeks on our own next summer following an Alaska cruise. Our priorities are Denali and the Kenai Peninsula. I can't find much information on anyone who has done both on the same trip, and I'm wondering if that is because it is completely illogical to try. The ship will let us off in Whittier. The closest I can get to anything that looks reasonable is to take the train to Anchorage or directly to Denali, stay in Talkeetna/Denali area two or three nights, then return by train to Anchorage, rent a car, and drive to the Kenai area and back to Anchorage. Time isn't really an issue with us. We're definitely open to exploring more territory, but we really want to see both those areas and with as little backtracking as possible. Can anyone help?

Two weeks is a fair amount of time to do both Denali and north of Anchorage (don't miss Independence Mine) and south to the KP. I realize backtracking seems inefficient but you won't mind doing the Seward Hwy between Whittier and Anchorage more than once. It's very beautiful. One time could be straight thru to Anchorage. Another time you could take your time and make stops. On a June visit the salmon hadn't started running yet in the Russian River but toward the end of our trip it was a fishing frenzy there.
One option would be to fly from ANC to Kenai or Homer and rent a car there. It's a short flight but not very scenic. We didn't check prices because we had a relative's car we could use while visiting. The flight made sense to us because it was inconvenient for them to do the 3 hour trip to ANC. We were also able to check our bags thru ERA to United for the trip home.

I would think two weeks would be perfect for this trip. Take train from Whittier to Girdwood and spend a day or two there, then train from Girdwood to Seward. You can rent a car there at hertz or you could take the train then from Seward to Anchorage. If you rented a car you would have a dropoff fee when you left it at Anchorage. The most scenic route according to most people is between Seward and Anchorage not Anchorage and Denali

Maybe BudgetQueen will see this. I always think she has the best ideas for alaska.

Thank you both. I'll look into your suggestions. I hope BudgetQueen will respond, also. I've taken many of her previous suggestions into account.

Budget Queen--a legend in her own forum!

What you want to do seems very logical. The more enjoyable/scenic train ride IMO (and I believe many others) is between Denali and Seward, moreso than Anchorage and Denali. But Anchorage-Denali was not bad. I see the bulldog made that point as well.

Do you want to stay inside Denali or outside?

Though it is quite expensive, if you could do a day trip from Anchorage to Brooks to see the bears fish for salmon, I think that would be a thrill. The time for that is July or the last days of June or first days of Aug. Otherwise early Sept.

Have a nice trip.

Oh boy!!!!!! Anyway two weeks is plenty of time for both Denali park and the Kenai Peninsula, plus more. When are you going?? Will make a difference on your routing if going in May, or end of August, through end of season. Do your homework on areas. The Kenai Peninsula is most often about Homer and Seward, but if into serious fishing, then you may want to add Cooper Landing?? www.kenaipeninsula.com plus the Seward and Homer visitor guides are helpful.

How are you looking to get around? You can see WAY more with a rental car. The Alaska RR requires more time, and is limiting for lodging and meal choices.

For just information, I do the Kenai Peninsula and Denali Park EVERY trip, I take interior Alaska, including my winter trips. So definately very doable and easy to plan on your own. With your time, look also at Fairbanks/Valdez and rank your "must dos".

Just get a Milepost. You can get the latest issue from Amazon.com. Every hotel and other attraction worth looking into is in there. And it is just plain fun to spend weeks figuring out your plans from this book.
Lynne

Also, I always recommend that people who are coming from the Alaska Highway go the way of Anchorage first so they don't miss the breathtaking Glenn Highway and drive past Matanuska and so that when they turn around and go north to Fairbanks, they see the breathtaking views of Denali on the way. If you go to Fairbanks first, you miss all that.
Lynne

Hi, my fiance and I spent 10 days in the Kenai Peninsula and in Denali from Aug. 12 to 22. We had a fantastic time. I have been meaning to write a trip report but somehow it's December and I still haven't done it (hangs head in embarrassment). If you click on my name you can see some of the threads in which I asked questions to prepare for our trip. I am going to push to do it by the end of December. I got so much helpful advice here.

We are in our early 40s and very active. For our trip we rented a 25-foot RV. We started in Anchorage. The first night we drove to Girdwood and spent the night in a parking lot at the Alyeska Resort ski basin. The next 2 nights we stayed in Homer. The next 2 nights we stayed in Seward. The next 3 nights we stayed in a campground in Denali National park. The last night we stayed in Talkeetna and then drove on our last day back to Anchorage and dropped off the RV.

It was a huge amount of driving -- I think we ended up with 1,100 miles. There is backtracking, no way around it. I had wanted to go out to Homer but I think I could've skipped it and we would've been ok, and added one more day to Denali. It was very rainy in Homer. We went over to Halibut Cove on one day and that was nice -- especially because the rain let up and it was dry for the afternoon! Seward was wonderful. One day we hiked on Exit Glacier with a guide and the next day we did a full day kayaking trip in Aialik Bay. We also went to the Sea Life center, and had a beer or two and did karaoke in one of the bars downtown one evening. In Denali we did a bush-walk on our own one day and then a full-day walk with a Park Ranger the next day. I wish we had had another full day and we would've gone to Eilson Center. As it was, we had just a taste of the national park. More for our next visit, I guess!

For info we used Fodors Alaska book and the Milepost. We ripped out the pages from the Milepost before we left home and carried them in file folders with info I printed out from others' trip reports and answers to my questions here on Fodors.

The whole RV thing was both good and bad. I guess it depends what you want out of a trip. We are both used to roughing it, and the sound of the rain on the roof while we were reading in bed was really quite romantic and cozy. However, the tinyness of the bathroom started to freak me out a little bit. Halfway through the trip I started to use the showers at the campgrounds instead of the RV. I loved being able to cook dinner instead of always wondering where to go to eat, but driving with all the clanging and clattering of pots and pans and silverware started to grate on my nerves. I myself did not like driving The Beast (as we named it) but my fiance loved it. Partly because I was too short to see over the dashboard so we made a make-shift booster seat out of pillows and blankets for me...

hope some of that is helpful...

Wow! I've been away from my computer for a while, busy with being away and guests for Christmas, etc. How nice to come back to all these helpful suggestions. As soon as I have had time to process everything and get started in earnest doing my homework again, I will have more (maybe many) questions. Thanks to everyone.

To answer some of your questions and comments so far, we aren't into serious fishing. We would consider it, but it isn't a priority. Bears are a priority, and hopefully moose, too. We definitely would like to take a bear-fishing-for-salmon-viewing trip, probably by float plane. Any opinions on that? We are planning on renting a car and aren't opposed to doing a lot of driving. I didn't know whether or not we would be missing anything by not taking the train at all. It isn't a requirement for us. Opinions?