After studying answers to previous posts and practically memorizing the Milepost, I have revised our summer itinerary to the following. Would appreciate any comments or suggestions.
Leave Edmonton June 24 and drive to Dawson Creek for overnight. Drive to Muncho Lake for one night. Drive to Whitehorse for two nights. Drive to Dawson City for overnight. Early start to drive Top of the World Highway and on into Fairbanks for two nights. Three nights at the Denali Backcountry Lodge. Two nights at Anchorage, July 4 and 5. Drive to Homer for three nights. Take 2 hour boat to Seldovia and overnight there with flightseeing return the next day to Homer. Drive to Sewart for 2 nights. Full day cruise. Three nights at Kenai Backcountry Lodge. (I know this sounds like back and forth, but those were only dates I could get at Kenai Backcountry). One more night at Sewart (we leave the lodge at noon, too late to make it to Whittier for ferry). Take the train or tunnel then ferry from Portage/Whittier to Valdez. Overnight in Valdez. Drive via Glenallen and Tok to overnight at Beaver Creek. One night at Haines. Ferry to Skagway for 2 nights (long trip on the railway from Skagway and return). Two nights in Juneau (full day Tracy Arm fjord cruise). Then we have allowed 4 to 5 nights between Juneau and Prince Rupert which we can't really decide until the Marine Highway releases its schedule. We hope to overnight in Ketchikan and possible Sitka, depending upon the schedules.

sounds fine

Hi Patrick, it's me again,your itinerary sounds good to me, but I would only spend l night in Whitehorse and 2 in Dawson City, see the Dredge #4 and the mine camp and drive at least some on the Dempster Highway. Be sure and check out the hotels within Denali Park, when we were there in Sept. we were told that they were closing the hotel there after the 2000 season.

Thanks, Wanda, I think we will take your suggestion on 2 in Dawson City and 1 in Whitehorse, if you feel there is more to do there. After three or four days of solid driving we were looking for a place to rest for two nights, but how far up the Dempster would we need to go to get something out of it? Also do you know anything about the border crossing west of Dawson City? The Milepost says it doesn't open until 9AM in summer. We had hoped to get a very early start across the TOW/Taylor, but is that not possible? Or is that only if you need to do something special at customs? Otherwise can you go right through? Also thanks for your suggestions further south. After much debating we have decided to take the ferry to Valdez from Whittier and up to Glenallen from Valdez. That means we will miss the section of the Glenallen Highway from Anchorage to Glenallen, but I guess we can't do it all.

Hi Patrick, believe me, you will not be driving solid, you will be stopping a lot just to look at the scenery and take photos.
Did you see in the milepost that the ferry out of Dawson City is closed down in the morning on Wed. from 5-7 for servicing. I think that we left Dawson City around 8 in the morning so we had no problem with the customs office being open.How early is early to you, don't go while it is still dark, there is too much scenery to see, but that time of the year it probably does not get too dark in any 24 hr period.
Be prepared to eat dust in Dawson City, they have gravel streets, wood sidewalks that get very slick when it rains, but it is neat. This will be a great place to relax.Be sure and check out the visitors center and the museum.
We only went 80-90 miles up the dempster highway but it was beautiful, it depends on if you like to look at scenery, the trees were changing colors while we were there in Sept.
Also, I would opt to drive to Whittier instead of the train, there was no toll this fall but be in 2001, but it has to be less expensive to drive as to taking the train and you will see the same things.

Interesting comment about driving to Whittier. The girl at the office for Kenai Wilderness Lodge told us that they had a real problem this summer with the new tunnel from Portage for cars and that next year they will only open it a couple of times a day, otherwise we will need to put the car on the train the way it used to be. Since we don't leave the Wilderness lodge until noon, it looked like it would be too tricky to catch the same day ferry to Valdez, hence our extra night at Seward. Guess it will depend on the schedule as to which way we do that -- car through tunnel or on car-train through tunnel. We will be leaving Dawson City on a Friday --we thought maybe 6AM or so --certainly light on June 29. Hope you are right about doing a lot of stopping. It looks like our four days from Edmonton to Dawson City will average about 450 miles a day, so hope the driving time does allow us some stop time. Again, at that time of year if we end up not arriving at our destination till mid or late evening it will still be light, so guess that is a good thing. Thanks again for your comments.

Patrick, we had no problem with going through the tunnel to Whittier,but we were there in Sept. We went right through drove around Whittier for about 10 minutes, does not take long as there is nothing there and no space to much of anything, just a few t-shirt shops and a couple of fish and chip places and of coarse the boat docks, and returned right away. There are lights to let you know when it is okay to go through.
I think that I would contact the ferry system as soon after the lst of the year
as you can and get some information from them about times that the tunnel is open and the ferry schedule.
While in the Portage/Girdwood area
, tour the Crow Creek Mine, it is interesting, also drive to Hope on the Kenai Peninsula.
You should have enough time to stop and look around even though you are planning on traveling 450 miles per day.

Hi Patrick,
I read your message with great interest as I am just beginning to research a trip to Alaska. We live in Northern California near Sacramento and are thinking of pulling our small (18')5th wheel trailer with our GMC pickup (1996 low milage) to Alaska and then traveling around the state in it. We like to fly fish, hike in the woods and do nature photography. I am an artist so I am also interested in art galleries, culture etc. From your messages I gather I need to get the Milepost whatever that is. A book I assume. In your research have you come across info on road conditions and campsites? I am wondering if it is OK to pull our 5th wheel. We have pulled it to Wyoming and Montana many times, sharing driving with no problems. I would appreciate any advise, thanks, Sandy

The Milepost is a big soft cover book you can buy at most major book stores; I bought mine at Barnes and Noble. It shows a map of each section of highway in Alaska as well as the approaches and shows exact distances in miles from each end with specific listings of attractions, motels, campsites, gas stations, etc. at each mile distance. It also gives clear descriptions of the roads in each area. In addition there are many ads for accomodations, restaurants, etc. It is invaluable. I am not into pulling anything behind my car so can't be of much help to you, but I know of many people who have done the 5th wheel thing to Alaska and think it is the only way to go.

Hi Patrick--Check out the Great Alaskan TourSaver (www.toursaver.com). It has 2-for-1 discounts for several of the items you are looking at. Otherwise, it sounds like a great Alaskan vacation!

I am from Dawson and I can certainly tell you that all sorts of RV's come through this way.
The Top of the World Highway is hard top until you get to the US Border, where it changes names tothe Taylor Highway. Being mostly grave, you really have to take your time until you get to the Glen Allen. For Driving time idea it could take anywhere from 8-12 hours to drive from Dawson City to Anchorage.
The only thing that is cheaper in Alaksa is Fuel, and that is just by a few cents. You save way more money on food and lodging in the Yukon comapred to the US to make up for that. Even snacks.
I saw a bag of Chips in Fred Meyer for $5.00 us and Bananas at $.89 cents a pund IN US. Double that with the exchange and that should tell you how much it is in Canadian Funds. (I was there 3 months ago for two weeks in Palmer).
I have to concur with everyone else and spend two nights in Dawson over Whitehorse. Besides that we get way more daylight than they do (in the summer anyway).

from Scott McMurren

Check out the Great Alaskan TourSaver (www.toursaver.com). It has 2-for-1 discounts for several of the items you are looking at.

This topping thing is getting a little silly. Thanks for the most recent advice, but since my original post was two years ago, did it ever occur to anyone that I've long been and returned from Alaska?

And since that last advice was already given in December of 2000, I'm not sure what extra value it added. By the way, I looked at that Toursaver and found it to be a total waste. Costs about a $100 as I recall and nothing was good for anywhere I was going in the height of summer.

Patrick,
I think that sometimes people top as a means of reintroducing information to future travelers.
Did you find that the coupons were restricted to off-season use, or were they simply not useful with your itinary? The company sure doesn't specify!

There were coupons for Kenai Backcountry Lodge and for Denali Backcountry Lodge for getting one person free when booking one person. Since we were planning to stay at both these, I called reservations and asked about the use of the coupons. They said they were only good within a short period of time (I forget how long) based on availability. Since I had to take my third choice of dates for Kenai Backcountry as it was -- almost 10 months ahead, it was clear that these coupons could never be used, and the girl at reservations confirmed that she could not recall anyone ever being able to use one.

Other places were the same, most stating "based on availability". If you are traveling in height of summer, trust me, there will be no availability when you try to use them. I looked at all the restaurant coupons and none were places we had preselected to eat. There were some for special discounts at places like the marine museum in Seward, but you could pick up the same coupons at the tourist office or off the desk at our hotel.

Thanks so much for your detailed reply, Patrick!
I was considering purchasing the book for next season, but it sounds like a bum {and expensive} deal. Plus the company expects you to buy blind, or go to a lot of trouble to research each offer - I think I'd pay a bit not to go through that hassle!

Patrick, since your post came back to life after two years I would like to hear about your trip and how everything work out.
We are going next summer for our fourth trip to Alaska and I'm always looking for some new ideas.
This time we are looking for a place to stay so we could to hike in the Glenallen (Matanuska Glacier)area. Did you stay anywhere there?

Also I checked this toursaver book and decided very quickly it was usless for us. Further, I know you found Milepost very useful but I don't like this huge book since it is so commercial (IMO) so this source is out.

It's been so long now, I can hardly remember it. Guess I didn't do a trip report after, or at least I can't find it with the search. If you look back at my original post above you will see our itinerary -- about one month total in Alaska itself. We ended up not taking a ferry from Whittier or going to Valdez, but rather drove from Sewart up to Sheep Mountain Lodge near Palmer for a couple of nights, then drove to Tok, and down to Haines. We also ended up taking the ferry all the way to Bellingham. We wanted to stay overnight at least in Ketchikan, so if we got off the ferry we would have had to wait three or four days for the next one to Prince Rupert. Instead we got a ferry the next day to Bellingham and we were glad we did -- the last part of the trip was just beautiful and saved us a lot of driving.

The highlights of the entire trip were definitely the three night stays at both Denali Backcountry and Kenai Backcountry Lodges. Although they were expensive, they not only provided everything, but service and accomodations were perfect for Alaska. We and one couple were the only ones at Kenai Backcountry one whole day as all the others left in the morning and the new group didn't come in until late afternoon. One of the guides took the four of us out on the lake on a boat for the day. He had picked a great picnic lunch we had at an old abandoned cabin, and we kept beaching the boat and taking hikes to various viewpoints. We saw tons of wildlife.

At Denali, part of the experience was the 9 hour bus ride all the way back through the park to the lodge. We saw a lot, including Denali peaking through the clouds for the first time in about a month. For our entire three days, the mountain was totally clear and in bright sunshine, a rarity. On our return bus trip out very early in the morning, it was drizzly rain. We saw everything, from a pack of wolves to a lynx, to tons of bears, etc.

We really got rained out in Sewart so didn't do much, but were sore from days of hiking so we enjoyed the rest.
Had a wonderful little overnight package trip to Seldovia's Boardwalk Hotel that we did from Homer. The inexpensive package included the nature boat trip over, a night at the delightful little lodge, and a flightseeing plane (just the two of us with a very young pilot) return over the glaciers. We also did a lot of bear spotting, circling the plane and coming down relatively close to the bears that our pilot could spot from miles away.

Regarding the Matanuska Glacier. Yes, we did go there from our stay at Sheep Mountain Lodge, a quaint group of cabins with a decent enough restaurant. We drove down near the glacier and walked on it, but thought it really wasn't much. We did a couple of other beautiful hikes up behind Sheep Mountain lodge however.

Just for a different point of view, we used the Toursaver this past June and July and found it very useful. We were not denied use of it one single time and most coupns are good from May through August with no black out dates.

Among the places we used it: Kenai Fjords Tours (2 for 1 full day tour = $100 savings); Godwin Glacier Dogsledding (2 for 1 = $300 savings); Homer Ocean Charters Cruise (2 for 1 = I think this one was $40); Edgewater Hotel in Seward (2 for 1 (I forget how much the rooms were here)); Princess Alaska R/T train trip to Denali with 2 nights lodging (2 for 1 = about $500 savings); Alaska Sealife Center in Seward (2 for 1 = $12 savings); Kayaking in Whitter (2 for 1 = around $40 savings I think) and there were many more.

I was skeptical because of the lack of complete details on their website also, but I made the major reservation using the coupons before I actually bought the book. I simply called ahead and asked for rates and then said I had the coupon. No problem at any time.

I suggest you at least try doing this based upon the list of deals they have on their site. Otherwise, I fear you're throwing money away.

Good luck!

-Mike