Turiki Int Co.

Each trip is different, but there are several things that I would always bring.

Digital Photo Camera

• What I would do without it … I love to look thru my old pictures and live the whole trip again. Taking pictures is what I like to do the best, though I do a poor job at that, but it is good enough for me.
• I just carry along my big DSLR Pentax K100D with 18-125mm lens - nothing too professional, but pictures are much better than even from top end Canon point and shoot - can not even compare
• Also I carry my small Casio point and shoot - sometimes it is useful just get out something that nobody will see. Also it is good to take videos with it.
• For my camera bag I use Tamrac Express 5 bag - it fits my camera + casio camera perfectly, does not stand out as a camera bag too much, also I carry spare batteries (Pentax takes AA!), SD cards and wallet and keys would fit there as well… and also, my moleskines and a pen fit there perfectly…

Moleskines

• Before I would go  to trips and everything would get mixed up and I would feel very bad, that I don’t have a solid memory about such a perfect time
• So my aunt said if I would write something down, it would help me remember stuff
• But I can not just write in plain notebooks, since I hate writing, I need something that would inspire me. I found it! It’s small Moleskine Cahier notebooks.
• They are perfect in size, not too small, not too big, just enough for 2 week trip… now I have a little collection of them : )
• If it is a big trip with a big group, then I use one Moleskines as an accounting journal - so easy, so good, everybody happy that I take care of all finances.

Phone

• I love people and love keeping in touch, so I always carry a phone with me and SMS to my friends and parents my status reports ; )
• I like Nokia, but never actually used good one, since I somehow kept using Sony Ericsson, which I love also. After I lost my K750 in the deep snow, I’m using W580i  - pretty nice and very small phone (hate carrying bulky stuff).
• It’s GSM and supports all 4 frequencies, so I can use it almost anywhere
• Sometime, when I have money, I want to try Nokia N95 or something along those lines - need to get a nice 3G phone soon

Sim Cards

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Back in the days (not that far, just like 5 years ago), to get a good price on a ticket I would call up travel agents and they usually gave me better deal than what there was on the Internet.

Times have changed and now there are more and more travel agents on the Internet and airlines themselves release cheapest ticket to the Net. From each day it gets easier and easier to get a good price on the ticket, but research still can lead to even sweeter deal.

For domestic flights (I fly very few of them, so might be wrong in something):

1. Search kayak.com for best deals and do +/- 3 days (unless you have strict schedule)
2. Check out if there are some deals at TravelZoo
3. Check nearby airports (like in Cleveland we have Akron which has Frontier)
4. You can try your luck at Priceline, but for me it never worked out

For international flights it’s a little bit more complicated (I mostly fly to Europe and Russia):

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Usually, unless it’s group of 4-5 people or less, I am looking for something like an apartment, cabin or a house, regarding lodging.

Right now I will be looking for lodging first at Denali State Park for one or two nights. Since we arrive late (like 1am), I’ll just get something official, like a hotel, since we will be just sleeping there for one night.

Usually I would just go to sites like kayak.com and look for a hotel, but since there are no towns near Byers Lake and if there are, such big sites would only find few big chain hotels, I have  to do it manually.

I start by going to Google maps and search for hotels near Byers Lake, AK. I get quite few of results - and I can also see their placement on the map, which is very useful. Though you have to recheck Google sometimes, because it might place them in wrong location (happens always).

Then I start going thru the list of hotels in location which is good for me and if they have a site, I’ll go there and see prices, e-mails and etc. It would be better to call each one of them, but I do not like calling, so unless none will suit me, that answer my e-mails, I am not calling.

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I have to find few day trips in Denali state park or national park, where we can hike. The problem with Denali National Park is that there are no marked trails, so have to get nice map and don’t forget the compass.

Denali National Park (http://www.nps.gov/dena)

Of course Denali can not be missed just because of the McKinley alone, but it is not good enough just to see it from the shuttle bus.

There are lodges and hotels just before the entrance and seems like few wild lodges in the Denali, I’ll cover that later, when start looking for a place to crash.

You can not drive in the park, just take a bus, which should be reserved and seats fill in fast. The best way to reserve it to call:

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We are planning a trip to Alaska this August (yeah, I know, it’s not the best time of the year for Alaska, but we don’t have much of a choice), so I would write up some information about traveling in this wild state.

There are several options to travel:

1. By foot ; )
   1. Well, we will hike, but with our company, it is hard to get anywhere far, so it is going to be just day hikes
2. By car
   1. Very few roads, so options are limited
   2. There are some 4-wheel roads only, which may lead to great places, but I wouldn’t take rental car there
3. By boat
   1. Widely spread mode of transportation, but too slow for us usually
4. By plane
   1. The best and fastest way to travel to remote (or any) areas, but way too expensive.

First we will arrive in Anchorage, take a car and go to Denali National Park and then return to Kenai area, so this should not be too hard (still looking for lodging and passes, which I will cover later). However, since we have like 12 days in Alaska, it is too much for just 2 parks (though I would not care, but we have like 12 people total, out of which 6 are from Russia and other 5 are working all the time and have little vacations), so we were searching where to spend extra time and to cover more of the Alaska.

There few choices right now for us (but much more choices as it is in Alaska itself ):

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