The Alaskan Experience
The Alaskan family trip is one you and your kids will never forget. Children as young as four reminisce about the Saxman Native Village and the whale watching. The patriarch of the family loved the salmon fishing, the grizzly viewing and the moose burgers. The matriarch enjoyed the Broadway shows aboard the cruise ship and the Denali National Park bus trip. Alaska is a wild wilderness with much to offer, but first you must come to a family consensus about what adventures to enjoy.
If it’s your first visit, then travel veterans will tell you an Alaskan Cruise is the ultimate way to see and experience the state of Alaska. Do you dream of seven-night cruises in pleasant sixty-to-seventy degree weather, while feasting on fresh-caught salmon, caribou steaks or reindeer sausages, and sipping on local micro-brews? Wouldn’t it be great if all your tours were pre-arranged and you could pan for gold, visit a glacial park, whale watch, take a jeep and canoe safari, watch a 1900s Lumberjack Show and see towering native Inuit totem poles? Or, if you’d like, you can still view the majestic glaciers along the Inside Passage, yet stay on the ship for all your entertainment, including casinos, movies, fitness centers, internet centers, spas, libraries, swimming pools, Broadway-style shows, game centers and educational native Alaskan presentations. A cruising Alaskan adventure is the perfect option for people who despise the organizing, arranging and “now what should we do” aspects of a vacation but love experiencing new things, all for one inclusive price. During the summer months, you can even find a seven-night cruise for as low as $799!
Perhaps you came to Alaska for an adventure. The last thing you want to do is sit in a cliché hotel, eat the usual cheeseburger while drinking the usual Budweiser beer, see a movie or go on some far-removed helicopter tour of the tundra. You want to be in the middle of the action, risking life and limb just to say you “did it.” You want to experience the ultimate adrenaline rush. You’ve come to the right place! The Alaskan experience will take you to a dog sled race out of Juneau, Skagway and Seward in the summer months. Winters in Seward offer the bravest souls a dip into the icy arctic waters in one of the world-famous polar bear swims. Spectators who’d rather not get wet can enjoy turkey bowling, oyster slurping and bachelor/bachelorette auctions from the sidelines. You may want to white water raft through Class IV and Class V rapids on the Sixmile Creek (with NovAlaska) or kayak to see marine wildlife up-close and personal from one of the tours. Kayak tours can be arranged in coastal towns such as Ketchikan, Sitka, Juneau, Cordova, Seward, Homer, Whittier or Kodiak. If air is more your thing, then take an exhilarating canopy zip-line ride through the tree tops in Juneau Alaska.
Instead of a cruise or helicopter ride, you may choose to travel the Alaskan landscape by land. If you’re the “road trip” type, then take the Palmer Highway out of Anchorage and travel 190 miles east through the Chugach Range and the Matanuska Valley to Glennallen, where you’ll find the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. You won’t want to miss the 13 million acres of glaciers, mountains, waterfalls and moose! Another land route is the Richardson Highway, which takes you from Fairbanks to Valdez along a 350-mile stretch of gold-mining history. The George Parks Highway from Fairbanks to Anchorage is a classic interior route that takes you right to Denali National Park, with its amazing wildlife viewing and hikes. If you’d rather not drive, then you can get a dog sled team of Malamutes and Huskies in Juneau, Skagway and Seward during the summer months.
By Travel Editor
