ITINERARY: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO ALASKA

Quick tips:

Renting a Car: I would highly recommend renting a car for your trip to Alaska. While some people recommend taking the train route, many towns in Alaska are quite dispersed, making it difficult to get to restaurants and other sites without a car.

Where to Stay: We stayed at the McKinley Chalet Resort, which I can’t recommend more. The resort is right on the river and has beautiful views of the mountains around, as well as its own restaurant and somewhat of a “town square” in between the various cabins.

Fun Facts:

• Visibility: Because of its size, Mount Denali creates its own weather, which means that it’s only visible 30% of the year. Unfortunately, we weren’t some of the lucky ones to get to see “The Great One”, but visiting the national park was worth it nonetheless.
• Size: Denali National Park is comprised of 6.1 million acres…roughly the size of the state of New Hampshire.
• “Mount McKinley”: Denali National Park was previously known as Mount McKinley National Park until 2015 when the Obama administration renamed it to its original Athabaskan name. It had been named Mount McKinley after the former president who had never traveled to Alaska nor had any connection to the mountain.

If you have time, explore the Horseshoe Lake Trail – a short and easy paved hike that circles around a small lake where many otters come to build dams. This hike is yet another reason to rent a car in Alaska, as the trail is only about a 5-minute drive from town but would take at least 45 minutes to walk there.

This restaurant is about 20 minutes north of town (yet another reason to rent a car) and is a great place to grab dinner after a long day of exploring. The brewery is best known for having the real-life van that Christopher McCandless used (and later died in) in the book and movie Into the Wild. Not only this, but they have a great selection of food and beer on tap, as well as live footage of bears fishing for salmon showing on their TVs around the bar. I guess that’s the Alaskan version of playing sports at a bar.

I  loved Kenai Fjords National Park, as it was exactly what I pictured when I imagined coming to Alaska. Beautiful glaciers, stunning mountain ranges, and unbelievable animals popping out of the water every second – I can’t imagine anyone disliking their time in Kenai Fjords.

Where to Stay: When visiting Kenai Fjords National Park, it’s best to stay in Seward, Alaska, which is known as the gateway to the park. We chose to stay at the Harbor 360 Hotel – the best deal in town and right on the water looking out at the fjords. A lot of the tours of the fjords also leave through the lobby of the hotel, so you’re right where all the action is. You’ll also get a discount on the hotel if you simultaneously book one of the tours that I mention below.

A whale watching tour is a must-do in Kenai Fjords. We took a full-day (7-hour) tour led by Major Marine Tours and even got up close to Aialik Glacier, which was an utterly stunning experience in and of itself. On the tour, we saw countless wildlife, including humpback whales, seals, mountain goats, bald eagles, and otters. Our guides even made everyone glacier ice margaritas with some of the glacier ice they found in the bay as we boated along.

If there’s one thing to know about me it’s that I’m clumsy — my mom has joked that I can’t even walk down the hallway of our home without getting hurt. So if I can hike on a glacier without sliding off, anyone can! Our guides at Exit Glacier Guides took us hiking about two miles to the edge of Exit Glacier outside of Seward, Alaska. Once there, we strapped on the crampons, harnesses, and helmets provided and made our way up the glacier. While on the glacier, we peered down into crevices and drank fresh glacier water from a stream. Thanks to global climate change, the glacier is now receding at a rate of over 300 feet per year, so be sure to get this experience in while you can.

Catching the salmon run was an unexpected but awe-inducing part of our trip. We made our way to the Russian River in Cooper Landing, in between the towns of Seward and Homer, and walked down the boardwalk to the falls. I’d recommend telling the parking attendant that you’re going to the falls so they put you in the right parking spot.

While watching the salmon swimming upstream was exciting, the real show comes from them attempting to fling their bodies up a fast-moving waterfall. I now have a newfound respect for the velocity at which they thrust their slimy bodies up these rocks to ensure they find a safe and calm place to lay their eggs. Be sure to give yourself a couple of hours for this one because I guarantee you’ll be entranced by the show.

Homer was the one city in Alaska that we visited that I could see myself living in. Homer sits right on a spit (aptly called the Homer Spit), which is a piece of land that juts out into the middle of the water, and they pack the Spit with dozens of old shacks, shops, and restaurants, making it the most touristy place we went in Alaska, although it didn’t feel like it. Also, many of the bear-watching activities leave via Homer, so not only is it a cute town but there are plenty of adventures to be had as well.

Where to Stay: Sadly, many places in Homer were booked when we began our planning, so we had very few options. We opted for the Pioneer Inn, which is an unassuming motel not far from downtown. It was a fine place to stay for what we needed, but there are definitely no frills attached.

We spent almost our entire trip searching for bears on our own until we decided to pull the trigger and take a bear-watching tour. While the price tag for this might seem hefty and I was a skeptic myself at first, it was well worth it. The guides from Redoubt Mountain Lodge took us out on a pontoon where we floated on a lake filled with bright blue glacier water and watched brown bears strolling, fishing, and playing on the shoreline. Seeing the interactions between the bears themselves was the highlight of the journey — whether it was a mom telling her cub to get out of the way while she was fishing for salmon or a female bear that happened upon a male bear’s territory and slowly backed away — it was an experience that we couldn’t have gotten anywhere else.

We’ve all heard that the best way to get a new perspective is from a birds-eye view, right? Seaplane tours give you such a unique perspective of the landscape around you that you can’t even fathom while you’re on the ground. Guided by the husband and wife duo from Beluga Air, our plane left from Homer and toured us around the islands, volcanoes, and glaciers surrounding the town, and the sights were unlike anything else we saw on the trip.

The final stop on our Alaska adventure was fly fishing along the Kenai River, which intersects with the Russian River at Cooper Landing. The team at Troutfitters suited us up with waders, boots, vests, and poles so we were ready to hit the water. We opted for the half-day (four-hour) guided tour as we were already exhausted from the six other activities above, but that gave us plenty of time to learn the ropes and catch some trout. Warning: Take note of when you plan to fly fish in Alaska, if it’s close to the end of the Salmon season you’ll find yourself stepping across countless fish carcasses as you wade into the river.