Anchorage Your Way?

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Over the years, I have had many people ask about doing either a land-only trip in Alaska or adding Mt. McKinley/Denali, Fairbanks and Anchorage on their own to a north or southbound cruise.

We recently returned from a trip to Alaska, sans cruise or packaged tour.

To be clear, I still believe the best way to see that part of Alaska is on a cruise tour.  It covers all the bases taking you on tried-and-true itineraries, making for a seamless experience.  That remains the E-Ticket.

I will also add that an Alaska cruise, including an easy-to-plan Inside Passage cruise roundtrip from Seattle that stays to the southeast part of Alaska will give you a very complete vacation experience.

The cruise lines plan it that way, just as they plan trips to other regions, so that you can do something unique in each port.

However, many of us have cruised Alaska, and the price of a cruise tour may seem a bit too steep to add a few days.  I will say that Alaska on your own pricing does add up.  Renting a car has gotten increasingly expensive compared to other parts of the USA.  Dining and lodging are what you'd expect to pay in most big cities.  Just signs of the times.

Whether you go on your own or on a cruise tour, you are not going to see all of Alaska.  If you could see a million acres a day, it would still take a full year and a little more to see all of Alaska.

The fact that there are no roads to most of Alaska makes seeing it all virtually impossible.  Perhaps those who tried are the reason why there is a triangle of land in Alaska where more people mysteriously disappear than in the legendary Bermuda Triangle.

However, we don't want you to disappear, so here are some tips.

Anchorage is a long flight from home, and Fairbanks generally takes longer.  You can fly to Anchorage and back from Fairbanks, as our daughter Gina's family did, or roundtrip Anchorage, which Julie and I did in order to simplify arrangements and limit hotel changes.

I would recommend downtown Anchorage, where there are lots of nice restaurants and watering holes, the Anchorage Museum (which has free entry the first Friday of each month), and occasional civic events, like a free Fourth of July Concert in a beer garden constructed in a park while we were there.

Not surprisingly, a hotel that cruise lines regularly include in their land offerings, Hotel Captain Cook, would be an excellent choice downtown. 

Our daughter Gina's nuclear family went with mid-town Anchorage, where they were only a mile from Wal Mart and fast-food outlets.

There is a relatively efficient bus system ($2 for adults, $1 for seniors, free for kids, and weeklong passes for $26).  I think Julie and I spent about $12.

There is a fairly sizable homeless population that hangs out by bus stops.

For meals, we went to Snow City Cafe and Humpy's downtown.  In midtown, we dined at Moose's Tooth Pizza and Buffalo Wild Wings.  All proved to be good choices, although we learned some valuable lessons, which I will share on Wes's Travels blog.

We walked ten miles a day while we were in Anchorage, which included hiking the length of the Chester Creek Trail in stages, Tony Knowles Coastal Trail, and University of Alaska campus to the lake trail.

An economy car rental for the week would have been about $1200.  If you don't want to hoof it, the easiest trick is to stay where you plan to spend your time.