Suggested Itineraries

Readers ask me about how to fit together their itineraries more frequently than any other travel question. Alaska is unfamiliar territory and the transportation connections are different from those in most places. You can't get to the capital city of Juneau over land, for example, and the distances seem daunting between the towns that do have roads or rails. If you don't even know how to get around, it seems hard to know where to go or how much time to allow. But don't throw in the towel, like so many visitors who think the only way around these complications is to take a cruise or escorted tour. In fact, these travel issues aren't really that hard. Using a map and a list of transportation modes, you can get a good overview.

What's really challenging, and where visitors most commonly make mistakes, is in failing to define their interests and not limiting themselves to covering a reasonable area. Some feel compelled to try to see the entire state. Given that Alaska is defined in part by its enormous size, trying to go everywhere is a fool's errand. A version of the same thing is trying to "do" all the famous wilderness parks, which lie far apart in remote regions: You spend too much time and money getting from place to place. Each of Alaska's regions, by itself, has most of what you're coming to Alaska for -- wildlife, mountains, glaciers, historic sites, cute little towns -- and you can have a better trip touring one or two regions rather than spending precious time going from region to region. To be specific, travelers with fewer than 10 days to spend should choose to tour either Southeast Alaska or Southcentral and Interior Alaska, but not both.

The other mistake some people make is to focus only on the largest and most famous destinations. Alaska isn't like Europe, with its cathedrals and monuments. Here a goal-oriented style of travel misses the fun and surprises -- and may end up missing the whole point. Mount McKinley and Glacier Bay are certainly impressive, but it's perfectly allowable to skip them in favor of memorable places you find on your own that may be just as beautiful, if not as famous. More valuable -- and more fundamentally Alaskan -- are chance encounters with wildlife or interesting local people, or simply peaceful time alone in the woods.

Finally, remember why you are going to Alaska. Surely it's not to visit museums or tourist attractions, but instead to see one of the most beautiful, unspoiled places on Earth. To do that, you need to get outside. There's only so much you can see and learn through glass. Take a chance on a sea-kayak excursion, a day hike, or a mountain bike ride. You may never have a better chance to try it.

Create Your Own Itinerary -- If all travelers had the same interests, needs, abilities, and preferences in pacing, they could all follow the same itineraries. Of course, then only the limited number of places that fit on a sample itinerary would receive all the visitors, while the interesting and peculiar places off the beaten path would remain unknown. I hope you use the sample trip plans here as a starting point to design your own individual trip. Substitute different activities or towns, or extend the time in places that are more appealing to you. Do the trips in reverse order or cut and paste portions of two different plans together. Or simply use the itineraries to get a feel for the distances and places and then build your own plan from scratch after browsing through the rest of the guide.