Alaska
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:
- By foot ; )
- Well, we will hike, but with our company, it is hard to get anywhere far, so it is going to be just day hikes
- By car
- Very few roads, so options are limited
- There are some 4-wheel roads only, which may lead to great places, but I wouldn’t take rental car there
- By boat
- Widely spread mode of transportation, but too slow for us usually
- By plane
- 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 ):
- Wrangell - St. Elias National Park
- Looks like a nice park, but very big and only 4-wheel drive roads (as the book says)
- Katmai National Park
- One of the nicest parks, especially the valley of 10,000 smokes
- But by boat it takes too long to get there
- By plane it is too expensive
- And I think all of lodging is already reserved (though, did not search thoroughly yet)
- Lake Clark National Park
- The same as Katmai as getting to and lodging part
- Chugach State Park
- Looks like nice park
- Very close to Anchorage - so good for last few days in Alaska
- Easy to get to
- Maybe not as interesting, as other places
- Juneau - Sitka area
- It is basically on our way home (well, ticket from there cost the same as from Anchorage, so we do not really save any money)
- Should be a nice looking area
- On average, much more rainy then Anchorage area of Alaska
Out of all the options above, we are now looking at Juneau - Sitka area. Chugach State Park is our last resort.
In the next few posts I will cover the following issues:
- Lodging
- Transportation
- Cars
- RVs
- Boats
- Planes
- Parks
- Maybe some other useful info
Though, many of the things are going to be more specific for our large groups (like lodging especially).