Alaska

[TheCryingTheBitchAndTheFloordrobe]

I'm thinking about a trip to Alaska. Has anyone done it? Any recommendations?

The only people I know who've been on holiday there went on a cruise and they did enjoy it but I'm not sure cruising is for us, really, we've never been on one. The train seems inordinately expensive though and driving is a bit of a drag as I'm the only driver and distances are vast. It'd be me and 2 teen DC.

I grew up in Alaska. Driving isn't always an option. Southeast Alaska is only reachable by plane, cruise boats, or ferry, except Haines and Skagway which you can take a train or bus from there up through Canada to Anchorage and other places in the northern part of the state. Alaska is HUGE. Look in a map and compare it to Great Britain, it's 3 to 4 ties the size of Great Britain. Even the northern part of the State is limited as far as touring in a car, and expensive withdrawal costs and gas, adding hours of driving and lodging costs.

A cruise is the best way to see the sites and affordable compared to trying to figure out plane fares, hotels, etc. Round-trip from Seattle to Juneau is around $500 for one at the moment.

A cruise will take you places you won't be able to see even if you fly and visit each city separately. You may have to decide whether you want to visit Southeast Alaska, or Northern Alaska due to cost and time. There usually options to cruise Southeast Alaska then take bus/train to Anchorage and see sites along the way, etc. It's expensive in regards to renting a car in each small town you visit in Southeast, along with plane fare to fly to each town.

Yes we did as a cruise from San Francisco. Absolutely fantastic

It was our first cruise and husband was apprehensive but loved the whole experience

This is really good advice. Thank you both so much for the helpfulness, and especially @YesItsMe44 for all the details! What a fascinating place to grow up.

There are a couple of places we might want to go that don't seem to be on the cruise routes (eg DS is looking at the Coast Guard and wants to check out Homer) but we could do a side quest at the beginning or end of a cruise, probably. I think I might have to get over my horror of cruising ha ha.

Which cruise line did you go with, @Pootle40? Must've been a decent length to head all the way up from SF?

I backpacked a few places in the US and Alaska was one of the states I visited. I think recommendations are going to heavily depend on why you want to go to Alaska and at what time of year. As for transport, I would fly. Domestic flights are fairly good value for money given the distances you'll be covering (certainly a lot better than domestic flights in other countries without much ground transport). There are direct links between Anchorage and Fairbanks and if you wanted to go really far north (Barrow etc) it would probably be better to fly there than risk breaking down or coming off the road in a remote wilderness.

If you want to save money on a hotel I would recommend Airbnb. I stayed with a lovely lady and it really felt like I was visiting a friend. Might be a bit more challenging to find a place with a party of 3 but it's doable.

Thanks @songaboutjam! We're probably looking at summer next year, realistically. We want to go for wildlife and scenery and somewhere different. DS is thinking he might want to move there after Uni and wants to have a look. We've travelled pretty extensively through the lower 48 but the DC haven't even been to Canada, let alone Alaska. Air BnB is a good shout, will have a look. Were there any places you particularly enjoyed?

We did 11 days with Celebrity. Had a stop at Astoria, Oregon and Seattle on the way up so prob a week in Alaska. Was amazing

We are saving for a cruise at the moment. Planning going when DS is ok to be left at home himself. It’s a bucket list cruise for me. I cannot wait.

@TheCryingTheBitchAndTheFloordrobe

We have been on two holidays to Alaska. Very different ones.

The most recent was a small boat for 12 guests. Living on board and obviously we went to places cruise ships don't. We called in for provisions at Juneau but otherwise it concentrated on wildlife. It was mid July but we didn't see that many bears. Quite a lot of exuberant whales and orcas though.

Our first trip was with DC on a cruise ship. They will take you to ports but you are not going to see an abundance of wildlife. We did a pre cruise to Denali and it was very disappointing to spend time in a discovery centre and hardly any time looking for bears. This was late August. We did see lots of salmon and organised our one trip to see bears. Shore excursions are very expensive. Big ships aren't for me but you will have to plan your driving carefully if you are not on the water. Our small boat was expensive as you might expect. However the peace was amazing. We had whales yo ourselves and no sonar! That's another story!

I went to Fairbanks and loved it, but I went at a time when there was snow on the ground and active aurora in the night sky. I don't remember it being particularly scenic (apart from all the virgin snow and the woodland around my Airbnb).

If you don't end up doing car rental there are organised tours to Chena Hot Springs and the Arctic Circle, from Fairbanks. But Fairbanks isn't a very big place so unless you're specifically holding out for something like an aurora, you probably wouldn't want to be there more than a couple of days. I was there for just under a week. Unfortunately I only had a few weeks to see the States so I didn't get to travel around Alaska - it was a case of "aurora seen, on to the next state".