Alaska problems… Do I want more photos of the moose or the glacier? In 2002 we paid eight dollars for a package of Oreo cookies. In Copper Center, I’d recommend making a stop at the Copper Center Visitor Center to learn what activities and trails to hike in Wrangell St. Elias National Park. This is one of the reasons that a day fishing for Alaskan salmon is a must do Alaskan adventure. Road Trip to Alaska. Anchorage has numerous grocery, department, and gear stores such as Fred Meyer, REI, Walmart, and more. From Tok, take the Glenn Highway down to Glennallen and from there head south on the Richardson to Copper Center. AnchorageEagle River & EklutnaHatcher PassTalkeetnaCantwell, Denali & HealyNenanaFairbanks, FairbanksDelta JunctionTokWrangell-St. EliasValdezMatanuska GlacierAnchorage. Starting/Ending Location. There are a lot of scenic drives to do in Alaska but following the Park’s Highway up to Talkeetna and then Fairbanks is what we did in 2002 and we had an exceptional time. In all my travels, I’ve never been in a place as exceptionally gorgeous as Alaska. Check out the tiny town of Hope, Alaska, Looking for more ideas? This was the moment in our camping trip when I truly wondered if my BFF Steven would murder me in my sleep as I pretty much just invited every Grizzly in the area to come sniff out our salmon flavoured campsite. An Alaska road trip is a fantastic way to spend a few summer weeks outdoors in the United States. A solo Alaska road trip sounds like a crazy idea to many women, but not Lisa Marquardt. If you find yourself in Anchorage in June for the summer solstice you can see for yourself as the summer time sun seems to refuse to set behind Cook Inlet. Valdez is a small port on a fjord in Prince William Sound that’s most well known as the terminus of the Alaska Pipeline. Venturing to Alaska with a sleeping bag, a tent, some freeze dried meals and sleeping amongst the Grizzlies sounded crazy and daring. Does this sound like your kind of Alaskan adventure? Visit Spencer Glacier On The Whistle Stop Train. Going to Fairbanks? It’s some of the prettiest places to hike I have ever been on my travels. One thing about Alaska though, if you hike you need to cover up one hundred percent. Why a Road Trip is the Best Way to See Alaska. An Alaskan road trip is full of unique experiences you can only find in Alaska. If the Deet you buy is fifteen percent Deet and seventy percent lotion the mosquitoes will just laugh at you. Home » North America » A Wallet Friendly Guide to an Epic Alaska Road Trip. © 2020, The Broke Backpacker. I may have been a bit extra scared of the Grizzly bears as I was the one who accidentally slopped freeze dried salmon into the dirt of our campsite our first night of camping in Alaska. (Although the mosquitoes were so terrible at Wonder Lake, the running joke was I “wonder” why anyone would camp here? I have a thing for little-visited parts of the world, breakaway regions, and remote places. Looking for more info on Byron Glacier? It’s very easy and just two miles. China Road Trip - Été 2016 Gui Nus. Maybe I have just watched the documentary Grizzly Man to many times. Girdwood is a small town about 40 minutes south of Anchorage along the scenic Turnagain Arm. Car tripping Alaska takes longer, but it allows you to see things you would miss when traveling by air. Embark on a backcountry hiking trip through the Gates of the Arctic National Park. The thing about camping in Alaska is you truly have to be prepared for a moose to charge through your camp ground or be ready to fight if a Grizzly bear charges you because he wants your freeze dried salmon dinner that you just slopped all over the campsite. If you want my advice; save that Alaskan adventure until you are in your sixties. I suggest taking a break from driving and the fantastic views of the Alaska road trip to spend a day fishing the rivers of Alaska. So where’s next? Renting fishing gear and exploring a glacier are memories worth a few extra pennies. If you stand on the roof of your rental car, you will get a much higher quality photo. Talkeetna is not my favourite small town on earth because every restaurant here is beyond amazing but because it is the coolest little town I have ever seen. (Which happened to come out in theatres a few years after my Alaska vacation trip.) There are multiple fishing guide shops in Talkeetna that rent gear and will give you advice on where to fish and the best bait to use to catch the Alaskan salmon of your dreams. Denali has plenty to offer with narrated bus tours, flightseeing, wildlife viewing, walking, hiking, backcountry backpacking, and so much more. Two hours to the north of Anchorage you may get your first views of Mt McKinley, or Denali or just “The Mountain” That’s what the locals call it. Millions of black spruce trees and miles and miles of taiga forests line the lonely highway as you make your way as north as you want to go. I personally use World Nomads. There is a popular saying about Alaska; Alaska is the way America was. The hiking in Alaska and in Denali National Park specifically is absolutely gorgeous. Narrative Road Trips Alaska, United States. We snapped a few photos (From far away) and continued back down highway one towards the glacier. We hadn’t even been bit by the state bird of Alaska; the majestic mosquito. If you research the Midnight Sun Festival online under festivities they list forty bands playing until midnight, gold panning, BBQ tasting and they list break dancing twice. The Grizzly situation in Alaska can not be understated. Experimente Alaska en el crepúsculo del invierno en un recorrido que incluye todos los aspectos más destacados de Anchorage. It wasn’t entirely because I was with my best friends on earth. Visiting Virgin Creek Falls In Girdwood, Alaska, Juneau Travel Guide + 19 Things To Do In Juneau, Homer Travel Guide + 14 Things To Do In Homer, Girdwood Travel Guide + 5 Things To Do In Girdwood, Alaska, Anchorage Travel Guide + 20 Things To Do In Anchorage, Fairbanks Travel Guide + 12 Things To Do In Fairbanks, Seward Travel Guide + 9 Things To Do In Seward, The Best Places To See The Northern Lights in Alaska, 10 Off The Beaten Path Destinations For 2020, The Surreality of the Underbelly: The Mendenhall Cave, Inside a Glacier, Free places to Ski & Snowboard Near Anchorage, Eating My Way Across The Alaska State Fair, Click Here For $20 off your first booking with Airbnb, Wander around the beaches, shop,s and campgrounds on the Homer Spit, Take a water taxi across the Bay to Halibut Cove, Take a hike up Flattop for panoramic views of Anchorage, Hike around the Eagle River Valley at the Eagle River Nature Center, Walk up Mt Baldy for panoramic views of the Knik Arm, Trek up or cross country ski around April Bowl, Hike K’sugi Ridge over in Denali State Park, Check out the Alfred Starr Cultural Center and Museum, Get outside the city (if you’re there in fall, winter, or spring), and, Take the kids to have fun at Pioneer Park, Rika’s Roadhouse & Big Delta State Historical Park, Charter an air taxi to check out the Wrangell St. Elias backcountry, or to stay in one of the public access cabins, Walk out onto Kennicott Glacier & Root Glacier, Take a glacier cruise to Colombia Glacier & Mears Glacier, Go seakayaking to explore the fjords around Valdez, Whitewater raft the Lowe River through Keystone Canyon. Make the most of your time in Homer with the Homer Travel Guide, Beluga Lake Lodge|Booking.com|Hotels.com|. The Adventures of Nicole is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program. I’ve always been a camper but never truly appreciated camping until I went to Alaska. Check out 2 Days In Anchorage and Free Things To Do In Anchorage for ideas on what to do in the city. If DIY isn’t your thing you can book glacier tours here. Updated April 2020, The Ultimate Alaska Road Trip Itinerary was originally written in January 2020 Alaska’s big and a major bucketlister for many a traveler. Every day we were in the Talkeetna area in late June there were insane thunder, rain and hail storms in the afternoon! Everything you need to know to plan a perfect visit: The Girdwood Travel Guide, Alyeska Resort| Booking.com | Hotels.com |, Looking for some awesome things to do in and around? Looking back this is still one of the best vacations I have ever been on. A little way down the highway after Copper Center head out onto the Edgerton Highway to Kenny Lake and Chitina, before making the remainder of the journey on the McCarthy Road that gives access to McCarthy and Kennecott Mine. ), but the awesome things about Fairbanks is that there’s plenty of other things to check out in town or just outside if you come for the aurora and the weather (and solar flares) don’t behave for you. Seward is the Gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park and a port city for southcentral Alaska. Here’s a gear checklist I swear by! Close, Amber can usually be found on top of the nearest 14,000 peak mountain. This is what makes a summertime Alaska road trip exciting! With Alaska’s vast size and limited amount of developed land, you probably aren’t surprised to learn that just about any road trip you take in the great 49th state is going to require a lengthy trek. As you drive further up Highway One and connect to The George Park’s Highway and really begin to put Anchorage and the city of Wasilla behind you, Alaska just opens up into the most gorgeous and green taiga forest thick with pine and spruce trees. That is one way to have an Alaska vacation. You absolutely must try a side of reindeer breakfast sausage with your sour dough pancakes. There isn’t much in the way of attractions or things to do in Kenai itself unless you’re planning to get in some fishing on your way down to Homer, but Kenai can be a decent place to stop over between Seward and Homer. During our Alaska road trip we chose to use a rental car from Alaska 4×4 Rentals They allow all of their vehicles to go on any road in Alaska, including the road to McCarthy. An adventure filled Alaskan road trip with a side of camping and fishing for massive Alaskan salmon takes you back to a simpler time and place before iPhones, Snapchat and Instagram. If you have gone as far as Fairbanks I highly recommend that you continue up the Dalton Highway until at least the Arctic Circle, the Earth’s northernmost circle of latitude. This is a steep trail that gives you a great view of the Nenana River down below as well as the Alaskan Range. I’m not sure why Fairbanks is so into their break dancing, maybe it comes back to that whole eighties feel of Alaska? If you are lucky maybe you will get stuck in roadwork further to the north where the highway parallels the Susitna River and you have fantastic river views. Start shopping plans over at battleface, my go-to travel insurance choice, or over at World Nomads. Check out our favorite Fairbanks hostels. There aren’t a lot of accommodation options in Whittier, however there are campgrounds. Plan your stay in Anchorage with the Anchorage Travel Guide, Bent Prop Inn & Hostel Downtown| Booking.com | Hotels.com |, Inlet Tower Hotel & Suites| Booking.com | Hotels.com |, The Hotel Captain Cook| Booking.com | Hotels.com |. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. People will explore this however they want, some people will buy themselves a campervan (and will also make sure that they have the right insurance for it – like the insurance found at Staveley Head Insurance), whilst others might prefer to figure out there own way around Alaska. It was because Alaska was other worldly in its beauty. Plan your visit to Denali National Park with the Denali Travel Guide, Alpine Creek Lodge| Booking.com | Hotels.com |, Aurora Denali Lodge| Booking.com | Hotels.com |, Grande Denali Lodge| Booking.com | Hotels.com |, Read more about the Denali Road Lottery & learn how you can do it too. Road Considerations. Just a warning though when booking a rental car, most rental car companies do not allow you to take cars on dirt roads so you can either do what we did and not tell them (And hope and pray an eighteen-wheeler passing you going eighty miles an hour does not flip up a rock and break your windshield) or you can go with a more expensive rental car company. Click here to shop Nenana accommodations. Below is the link to my other road trip video. No sólo porque evidentemente el invierno en Alaska es muy duro, si no por lo que este clima acarrea en el día a día: Las carreteras en Alaska cierran desde las primeras nevadas hasta el deshielo. Our road trip mascot a known as “maxi-moose” – I wish I could say I came up with that name, but I didn’t! This route takes you through Denali National Park too. It is a town of ten people. That right there is why an Alaska road trip is the best budget friendly vacation you can have in the United States. Where else on earth can you take a tiny seven-seater plane to the top of a glacier? About Alaska’s Highways Alaska really feels like the last frontier and the insane beauty of this state; the pine and spruce trees and the taiga forests really do take your breath away. At the time I went to Alaska I was twenty two years old and none of my friends had travelled at all. Stock the cooler for the dining options between here and Talkeetna are pretty bleak. If you walk into the gas station, you may meet all of them. About to hit the road on an epic adventure? Father, son, Little Sister guitar, and a car in trip through the Canadian Rockies, Northwest Territories, Yukon, on to Alaska, and back to British Columbia. It'll be there for you when you can't get service on your SmartPhone. Visitors are often surprised by Alaska's sheer size; many of the major communities on the road system are at least a five- or six-hour drive from the next major town. Entrance to Shanghai - Inner Ring Road - Trip to China part 43 - Full HD travel video - Duration: 3:16. Drive through this fantastic state on your Alaska road trip, Take a break from your Alaska road trip to Camp Amid the Grizzly Bears, Eat at Every Restaurant in Talkeetna You Can Find, Take a Break from an Alaska Road Trip; Fly. Eating freeze dried food in Denali National Park for a few days may sound slightly terrible but before you enter Denali National Park, if driving into Denali from Anchorage you will drive through the smorgasbord of a small town, Talkeetna. Check out the hit the highlights road trip: Anchorage to Fairbanks. Updated April 2020, The Ultimate Alaska Road Trip Itinerary was originally written in January 2020. This is the most common jumping-off point for an Alaska road trip as Anchorage has the most domestic and international connections. This is an almost ten mile hike, and it took us nearly ten hours to do the whole thing. Because of the vast amount of sunlight that Alaska summer days consist of you can truly fish for twelve hours straight in Alaska, if you want to! None of this highway is paved as it follows the Trans-Alaska Pipeline up to Deadhorse. For a total of four friends and a butt load of camping supplies I recommended going with at least a small SUV. You will want to have plenty of food, water, gasoline and camping gear for the journey…. I think that I have sorted out pretty much our highlight but would love to get any advice from locals :-) We`re looking for shorter drives per day to be able to enjoy longer stops. this post to see a list of cheap accommodations, Take a glacier cruise from Whittier to explore Prince William Sound, Visit Spencer Glacier On The Whistle Stop Train, Take a Kenai Fjords National Park glacier cruise, One Week Kenai Peninsula Road Trip itinerary, Go flightseeing and bear viewing over in Lake Clark National Park, backcountry safari down the Stampede Trail, Riverboat Discovery Tour down the Chena River, Take a road trip tour from Fairbanks to Delta Junction, one week in Alaska Wrangell St. Elias & Prince William Sound Road Trip, Anchorage To Fairbanks Road Trip: One Week In Alaska, Kayaker’s Cove: My Favorite Escape From Seward, The Best Way To Explore Kenai Fjords National Park: Major Marine Tours, What to Pack for Alaska, Written by a Local, Denali National Park Travel Guide + 14 Things To Do In Denali, The Rabbit Lakes Hike In Anchorage, Alaska, The Reed Lakes Hike In Hatcher Pass, Alaska. It’s an exciting and fearsome place to vacation! This means long sleeve shirts, long pants (harem pants, for example), gloves and a mosquito net hat is a must. All rights reserved. Imagine the most gorgeous pink and purple sunset that lasts for three hours. We are a Norwegian couple (age 45) planning our 3 weeks road trip to Alaska during July/August 2019. When we departed the Alaska Air Jet in 2002 I was dressed in boot cut jeans and a plain blue t-shirt, and I was wearing flip flops. There are a few essentials you need for a week to a few weeks out in the Alaskan wilderness. If you’re not fussed to camp in a tent (or camper/RV) and outside the park though, you can usually find a slot at a campground even at the last minute. The people you meet in Talkeetna while hanging out at the Denali Brewing Companies tasting room have the craziest stories to tell of actually climbing “The Mountain” BTW The Denali Brewing Companies tasting room and patio area is an exceptional place to spend an afternoon. Try to decide between the beer battered cheese bread sticks and the pizza with actual reindeer sausage. Moose, glaciers, grizzly bears, bald eagles, mosquitoes as big as bald eagles… Alaska has it all to offer and the sun never sets on adventures here in the land of the midnight sun! A fun event in the Fairbanks area is witnessing the Yukon 800 River Boat Race. That is a truly Alaskan experience. RV to ALASKA: Planning Your Alaskan Vacation Road Trip Today we're chatting with Pau Hana Travels to find out the scoop about taking an RV trip to Alaska. Alaska never had a chance to become overdeveloped or spoiled, as conservation was an early initiative in many of its most beautiful natural attractions. The campsites at Sanctuary River or Wonder Lake are just so gorgeous. Not much further south from Girdwood is a tunnel that pierces through the mountains to a little town named Whittier on Prince William Sound. $1,635 for three nights, all-inclusive. Some of the freeze dried flavours you can buy out there, like there Organic Curry in a Hurry, are actually pretty tasty these days, (Like the salmon flavour that I seasoned our campsite with at Savage River Camp Ground) It wasn’t the best food I ate while camping and hiking my way through Denali National Park but we had to save those pennies for things like plane rides to have snow ball fights on top of Glaciers. Check out our favorite Fairbanks hostels. Kenai Airport Hotel| Booking.com | Hotels.com |, King’s Haven Lodge| Booking.com | Agoda.com |, Southern Bluff B&B| Booking.com | Hotels.com |, Read more details on my One Week Kenai Peninsula Road Trip itinerary.