We just returned from our most anticipated trip of 2023: Alaska!
If you asked me how I would describe Alaska, the words that comes to mind are wild and vast. Beyond that, I find it hard to put into words how to adequately describe this incredible state.
The landscape was dramatic, breathtaking, harsh, and beautiful. At times we felt like we were in a Jurassic Park scene surrounded by tall, lush, tree-covered mountains. Other times we were reminded just how quickly the seasons change, with fall colors on the foliage and dramatic, snow-capped mountains during our late season visit. Then other times we were at sea level with vast harbors full of boats and fishing vessels with majestic mountains in the background.
I’m confident when I say we covered a lot of ground during our two-weeks in Alaska. However, Alaska is huge and I feel we only scratched the surface during our visit. Which is actually okay because we want to return to Alaska in our RV one day and spend the season exploring more (#bucketlist).
Because Alaska is so vast, it’s hard to decide where to go when time is limited. I did a ton of research in preparation for this trip, and I’m excited to share what I learned as you consider a trip to Alaska. I’ll go over our 14-day Alaska itinerary, and details from our amazing adventure!
And… if you’re looking for more details on our adventure check out our favorite (paid) excursions, and our days in Denali National Park & Preserve and Kenai Fjords National Park. If you feel an Alaskan cruise is for you, we share our thoughts to answer the question, is cruising is the best way to see Alaska?
Why Alaska
First off, why Alaska?
Actually, Alaska was not at the top of our bucket list when it came to travel destinations. It wasn’t even in the top five, or maybe even top ten.
However, his brother suggested a family (with his parents, so five people total) cruise to Alaska.
At first we were hesitant to cruise, especially post COVID. However, after some thought, we decided a cruise was actually a good option when traveling with family. Everyone has their own space and tons of options for activities.
Is cruising the best way to see Alaska? We answer that question here.
My in-laws agreed, and so in the spirit of making memories with our family doing one thing we love, travel, we agreed! Note: we acknowledged this would mean less time for RV travel this year, but agreed the trade off of spending time with his family was worth it.
Everyone was in. Which meant I, as the designated and self-appointed family travel agent, had to get to work figuring out how to make this happen!
When to Visit Alaska
The first decision we had to make was when to visit Alaska. As you might assume, Alaska’s “warm weather” season is pretty short. If we wanted to cruise we were visiting between May and September.
We landed on late August. Cruise prices were a bit lower, we’d miss the worst of mosquito season, the weather could be a little chillier, but wildlife should still be out. Plus, there was a chance we could see the northern lights, a bonus!
When to visit Alaska is dependent on what activities you want to experience. For example, if you want to see the salmon run, July and August may be your best bet. If the Northern Lights are high on your list, you may have a chance between September and April, though the peak is in March. For the Iditarod, you’ll want to visit in March.
I recommend you come up with your top “must-dos” list for Alaska. This will help you pinpoint when to visit.
How We Decided our 14-Day Alaska Itinerary
Since this was a family trip everyone had different objectives for what they wanted to see and do.
My in-laws wanted this to be their one-and-done Alaska visit, so they were interested in adding a land tour to whichever cruise we chose to see more of inland Alaska. His brother really wanted to visit Denali National Park. I couldn’t argue with that!
Meanwhile we wanted to spend more time out in nature, hiking, and visiting as many national parks as possible.
For the first step, I researched Alaskan cruises that included a land tour to Denali National Park. Two cruise line front-runners became clear–Holland America and Princess. Notably, Princess and Holland America were the only cruise lines allowed into Glacier Bay National Park (at least for 2023) for scenic cruising, and included Hubbard Glacier on their itinerary. Through research I determined these would be amazing and unique stops (they were!).
We had a trusted travel agent price cruises, and decided on Holland America’s Denali land tour plus cruise, with a southbound sailing from Whittier to Vancouver. Holland America was a little cheaper, and included some extras to help us control costs. We all booked balcony rooms on the port side of the ship to make the most of our southbound sailing since it was mostly along the coast.
After the cruise was booked I researched more things to do in Alaska to see what else we wanted to put on our list. Ever the maximizer, if we were making the long plane ride to Alaska, I wanted to knock some things off our list. I relied on Trip Advisor forums and RV YouTube channels we love that had visited Alaska. Channels such as Keep Your Daydream and Less Junk More Journey gave us tons of ideas!
Ultimately we decided to fly out four days ahead of time, rent a car and explore Anchorage for two-nights, and then Seward for two nights before starting our land tour to Denali. In retrospect, I’m not sure I’d cram Seward in if I did it over, but I’ll get into that in a future post.
We wanted to add time in Vancouver at the end of the trip, but decided we’d be ready to get home to our pup.
Our 14-Day Alaska Itinerary
Our 14-day Alaska itinerary included planes, trains, automobiles, and boats! We definitely hit all the primary forms of transportation, which meant for a lot of moving parts to this trip, as well as hotel/lodging changes. In fact, we changed lodging five times in a week… I do not recommend!
We decided we’d have more energy to explore on our own if we flew out before the land tour and cruise began. This way the trip would progressively grow more relaxing for us. If I had to do it again, I’d still set it up this way.
Here is how we divvied up our time in Alaska.
Days 1-5: Anchorage & Seward Areas
We flew from our local airport near Cincinnati, Ohio to Anchorage using Delta points and a voucher (yay for travel hacking!). It was a long travel day, and we arrived around noon in Anchorage. We picked up our Turo car rental (basically like Air B&B for car rentals), a 2023 Toyota Rav 4, which was perfect for us. We crashed early that day due to the four-hour time difference at our Marriott hotel (booked with Marriott points, score!).
The next day we drove far north and hiked Matanuska Glacier with MICA Guides, explored Hatcher Pass, Palmer, and crashed again at our hotel in Anchorage. Read more about our awesome excursions and how we decided what to do here.
The next morning we headed south, excited to drive the scenic Turnagain Arm. We stopped in a very rainy Whittier for lunch, and proceeded on to our final destination for the next two nights in Seward.
In Seward, we explored the coastal town but spent most of our time hiking in Kenai Fjords National Park, which was incredible. Learn more about our time in the park here.
On our final day on our own, we packed up and drove back to Anchorage, dropped the rental car, and joined Mike’s family for the start of our land tour and cruise!
days 5-7: Denali National Park & Travel
From Anchorage we rode the incredible, glass-domed McKinley Explorer train to Denali, and checked into McKinley Chalet Resort.
We spent one entire, spectacular day in Denali National Park, where the clouds finally cleared. Did we see Denali?! Yes, we did!
We boarded motor coaches bright and early the next day, and drove to Whittier. In rainy Whittier, we boarded Holland America’s Nieuw Amsterdam, and settled into our room. Needless to say we were so excited to be in one location for the next seven nights!
Days 7-14: Cruising Alaska’s Coast
The first two days of our cruise included scenic cruising, which turned out to be our favorite part of the cruise! On our scenic cruising days all we had to do was find places on the ship to enjoy the incredible sights from our cruise ship (in between sampling all the buffet had to offer, lol).
The first day we saw Hubbard Glacier, and then the second day we cruised in magical Glacier Bay National Park. If you take nothing else from this post, please be sure these two places are on your Alaskan cruise itinerary. Trust me!
Over the next few days we stopped at the ports of Skagway, Juneau, and Ketchikan.
The last day of the cruise we sailed the scenic inner passage as we approached Vancouver. The last day was also the only day it was comfortable to be outside on the ship deck, as we were heading south and the weather warmed up a bit with less wind.
Our 14-day Alaska itinerary concluded with a long flight from Vancouver to Minneapolis, and then on to Cincinnati.
How to Decide on Alaskan Excursions
As you plan a trip to Alaska, prepare for sticker shock when it comes to the price of activities/excursions.
If you’ve read our other posts you know we mostly focus on free activities like hiking, scenic drives, etc. However, as I researched things to do and see unique to Alaska, I knew we had to splurge for a few once-in-a-lifetime activities. In fact, we ended up spending just a little over $1,000 in excursions (eek!).
Our major, costly activities/excursions (none booked through the cruise line) were: Matanuska Glacier hike, visit to Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, and a flight-seeing tour of the Misty Fjords National Monument out of Ketchikan. And yes, between these three activities we spent $1,018.
I recommend making a list of activities you want to do (hike a glacier, watch bears eat salmon, take a helicopter and land on a glacier, wildlife boat tour, flight-seeing tour, fish for salmon, etc.) and then decide your top ones. Then try to find tours that would check off several of these activities at once under one fee.
Piece-mealing tours is fine, but it will likely cost you more. I go into great detail about how we decided what excursions to do, what we’d do differently, and our top excursions here.
How we Prepared for 14-Days in Alaska
Research & Organization
I firmly believe the more effort you put into researching and learning from others before a trip, the better and smoother the trip will be.
For us watching YouTube videos of the places on our itinerary helped a ton.
Whenever we visit a national park I spend time on the NPS park website for ideas of things to do and see, especially for hikes and scenic drives. I use AllTrails to create a list of potential hikes so we know what our options are for each location.
I’m also a big fan of Trip Advisor destination forums, where you can read feedback from others who have visited a location, and even ask questions to the local experts in the group. Pro tip: do your research first otherwise you’ll be met with unhelpful, snarky comments.
I also used TripIt for the first time. This is a free app to organize your travel itinerary. Basically you forward your email confirmations for flights, hotels, car rentals, excursions/activities, meal reservations, transportation, etc. and the app will organize it day by day. You can also add things manually, like reminders, etc.
You can also share the trip with others. I sent it to my mom so she knew were we were at each day, and of course to him so he knew our general itinerary. This was a helpful tool and we already have our Croatia itinerary set up!
Gear
There are a few pieces of non-negotiable gear as you plan for your Alaskan adventure.
Water proof rain jackets are essential. Not water resistant, waterproof!
Before we left we invested in new rain jackets. I decided on REI’s Rainier jacket because it was light weight, had pit zips, and overall the feel was softer and less plastic-y than other options. The price wasn’t bad, either. Meanwhile, he decided to go with Patagonia’s Torrentshell, which was an investment but he needed something fully waterproof.
We left the Anchorage airport and literally the first stop we made we pulled out our rain jackets. I wore my rain jacket literally every day of our trip. The jacket was a perfect outer layer even when it wasn’t raining.
Water proof shoes or boots are also non-negotiable. Our tried and true go-to is Merrell Moab hiking boots for men and women. We are both on our second pair since 2017.
Need a camera to capture incredible memories? I have pondered purchasing a nicer, more sophisticated camera since I really enjoy photography. I was very lucky to have a friend lend me his Canon EOS RP camera and several different lenses for our Alaska trip. Luckily I brought it back in one piece! That was a bit nerve-wracking!
For me the upgraded camera was a “nice to have,” but not essential. I can’t wait to share more of our Alaska photos with you.
Fitness
Several activities I wanted to do in Alaska were rated strenuous. I didn’t want my physical ability to limit me, so I prepared for those activities in the months leading up to our trip (which aligned with my health goals anyway).
The activities I was mostly concerned about was the group Matanuska Glacier hike and hiking part of the strenuous Harding Icefield Trail in Kenai Fjords National Park.
I walked on steep incline on my treadmill, wore a weighted backpack at times, and kept up my lower body strength routine.
While not required for your trip, your overall fitness may be something to consider as you decide what you want to do in Alaska.
Wrap Up
That’s a wrap on our 14-day Alaska itinerary. By now you have some ideas of how to start planning an amazing trip to Alaska.
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