Turiki Int Co.

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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