vacationing in alaska

go pre

my wife and i are planning on heading to alaska for a week this summer. we're thinking anchorage/denali/fairbanks region for about a week and then ketchikan (because i lived there for about a year back in the day) for a couple of days.

does anyone have any advice for what we should check out while we're there.

Drop The Leash 10

my family is thinking about doing the same thing! ill also listen here.

tybird

I enjoyed taking the train from Anchorage to Seward....hopping on a boat for an excursion out to the Kenai Fjords National Park area....hopping back on the train and being back in Anchorage before midnight. The train we took left pretty early in the morning....served a great breakfast.

pearljgirl2010

go pre wrote:

my wife and i are planning on heading to alaska for a week this summer. we're thinking anchorage/denali/fairbanks region for about a week and then ketchikan (because i lived there for about a year back in the day) for a couple of days.

does anyone have any advice for what we should check out while we're there.

hey there...I'm a Travel Agent in LA and I'd be glad to help you out if you'd like :-) my email is <!-- e --><a href="mailto:traveljanet@gmail.com">traveljanet@gmail.com</a><!-- e --> if you want to drop me a note...

go pre

so ... no one else on these boards has ever been to alaska?

Commy

go pre wrote:

so ... no one else on these boards has ever been to alaska?

yeah I used to work in alaska. check out katmai. its where the national geographic people get a lot of their footage of grizzly bears, feeding on salmon. i've never been but a buddy of mine took a trip up there. said it was kind of hard to get too, but worth it.


*down there. I thought it was up north. its actually closer to anchorage than I thought... http://www.katmailand.com/interactive-map.html
and apparently they're brown bears, not grizzlies.

Flagg

I toook a cruise to Alaska with my wife in 2006 for our 10th anniversary. But instead of returning to the 48 with the rest of the cruisers when then busses dropped us off at Anchorage, we rented a car and drove up to Denali and stayed a few extra days. It was amazing. We did all the tourist stuff, you know, the guided tours through the park, going out to find wild life, etc.

The most disconcerting thing about it was the sun of course. We went in late June. It was crazy to walk out of a bar at 1:00 AM and see the sun bright and shiny in the sky.

But the cruise was incredible. The glaciers and the mountains just coming right out of the water. We stopped at Sitka, Hoonah, Skagway, etc. It was cool to see the real differences between the tail of Alaska and the interior. It never even occured to me that there would be such a heavy Russian influence in the architecture and food. But, duh, Russia is right next door remember?

Took a Cessna ride over the glaciers. That was thrilling!

decides2dream

we did our honeymoon cruise from vancouver to ankorage...hitting all the ports in alaska along the way...trip of a lifetime!!! one excursion we did was a helicopter ride over the glaciers, and then actully getting dropped off for a while to walk around ON a glacier. :shock: i highly, highly recommend this - it was AMAZING! we truly LOVED the whole trip, alaska...all those little towns, just a great time!



edit - i see flagg did a similar trip - great times eh? we did ours slightly before you.....in 1992. we also went late june....spectacular weather then! just loved it.

only difference is, we spent about a week in vancouver before our cruise, due to our wedding date....so once we made it up to ankorage, we only spent a day there and then headed home. would love to go back and see the interior someday, but it was definitely one of the greatest trips ever. however, i DId experience the bizarre daylight/twilight up in helsinki finland.....sooo strange. took a hot air balloon ride one night - UNREAL - and it didn't even look at all 'dark' unitl about 2AM. definitely took some getting used to. :P

tybird

Flagg wrote:

I toook a cruise to Alaska with my wife in 2006 for our 10th anniversary. But instead of returning to the 48 with the rest of the cruisers when then busses dropped us off at Anchorage, we rented a car and drove up to Denali and stayed a few extra days. It was amazing. We did all the tourist stuff, you know, the guided tours through the park, going out to find wild life, etc.

The most disconcerting thing about it was the sun of course. We went in late June. It was crazy to walk out of a bar at 1:00 AM and see the sun bright and shiny in the sky.

But the cruise was incredible. The glaciers and the mountains just coming right out of the water. We stopped at Sitka, Hoonah, Skagway, etc. It was cool to see the real differences between the tail of Alaska and the interior. It never even occured to me that there would be such a heavy Russian influence in the architecture and food. But, duh, Russia is right next door remember?

Took a Cessna ride over the glaciers. That was thrilling!

...and the Russians were the first Europeans to explore the area....and there's the fact that they "owned" until the 1860s....when William Seward lead the effort for the U.S. to purchase it from the Tsar.

tybird

tybird wrote:

Flagg wrote:

I toook a cruise to Alaska with my wife in 2006 for our 10th anniversary. But instead of returning to the 48 with the rest of the cruisers when then busses dropped us off at Anchorage, we rented a car and drove up to Denali and stayed a few extra days. It was amazing. We did all the tourist stuff, you know, the guided tours through the park, going out to find wild life, etc.

The most disconcerting thing about it was the sun of course. We went in late June. It was crazy to walk out of a bar at 1:00 AM and see the sun bright and shiny in the sky.

But the cruise was incredible. The glaciers and the mountains just coming right out of the water. We stopped at Sitka, Hoonah, Skagway, etc. It was cool to see the real differences between the tail of Alaska and the interior. It never even occured to me that there would be such a heavy Russian influence in the architecture and food. But, duh, Russia is right next door remember?

Took a Cessna ride over the glaciers. That was thrilling!

...and the Russians were the first Europeans to explore the area....and there's the fact that they "owned" it until the 1860s....when William Seward lead the effort for the U.S. to purchase it from the Tsar.

Flagg

tybird wrote:

...and the Russians were the first Europeans to explore the area....and there's the fact that they "owned" it until the 1860s....when William Seward lead the effort for the U.S. to purchase it from the Tsar.

That is what was stupid. I knew all that. I just never thought about it until I saw it.

It was cool though.