Before we close the Alaska travel chapter, we have a few comments and some advice. Even though we didn't get our Alaskan blogs published until later, our actual days of travel were May 21 through June 11. We actually found visiting Alaska during the shoulder season worked well for us. It was a great destination to fill the gap between our granddaughter's third birthday and a nephew's wedding. Following are some tidbits of information and advice we learned from our three weeks in Alaska:
We found that things like ranger stations, shuttles, and tourist railroad trips don't open until Memorial Day. But we enjoyed the smaller crowds before the tourist season officially started. We loved experiences like the day we hiked on Root Glacier for a couple hours, and never saw another person.
We found that hiking is limited before June 1 because mountain areas were still covered with snow this year. All the highways were open and clear, but some of the gravel and side roads to trail heads aren't cleared until around Memorial Day. Even after June 1, expect to see snow on many hikes.
We were glad to see that wildlife--especially moose--are easy to spot. We were surprised to find most of our wildlife along busy highways. We actually saw fewer animals in Denali National park than we expected, and fewer along the miles of gravel roads that we drove. But we saw so many moose along the highway that we stopped taking pictures. Our favorite sighting was from the first evening when we spotted this mother and two newborns by the side of the road.
We had heard that free boondocking spots in Alaska were easy to find, because you can spend the night in any of the pull-offs along the highways. We found that to be true, and there are hundreds of pull-offs. But we found that we liked the more private spots a little removed from traffic. We got pretty good at finding these sweet spots, and we camped for free all of our eight nights in the camper van, and three of the nights in the motor home.
We had encounters with mosquitoes 2 or 3 days, but we know that gets much worse later in the summer. For that reason, we liked going early in the season. From our brief encounters, we can report that Alaska mosquitoes are as big and as aggressive as we had heard.
We knew that the state of Alaska is very big, but this picture in the Anchorage Airport shows its size in comparison to the lower 48 states. It's bigger than the next three largest states--Texas, California and Montana--combined.
But we learned that the area that you can visit in a car is pretty small. From landing at the Anchorage airport, you can drive to the furthest highway north to Fairbanks in 360 miles. You can also drive on the furthest highway south to Homer in 222 miles. Of course we made lots of stops and went slowly, so we didn't make great time on our trips around Alaska. We also did a lot of backtracking because we shared this trip with friends that arrived eight days later. So we drove much further and drove most of those highways multiple times.
We found that Alaska is a great destination for people wanting a vacation out of the lower 48 states. While most of the world is still closed to international travel, the state of Alaska was welcoming travelers with open arms for the summer of 2021. We were required to wear masks only on the train, and in certain shops in Homer, and on the Musk Ox Farm tour. We found a few museums and the fish hatcheries were still closed to visitors, and national park visitor center buildings were closed so rangers answered questions outside. But the rest of the state was mask-less and tourist-friendly by May 2021. We include the masked-up picture at the Musk Ox Farm just because it was the exception to the rule for us.
Because the Canadian border is still closed to traffic from the United States, there are fewer RV travelers in Alaska. It's just not a possibility to drive your personal RV through Canada to get to Alaska in 2021. We found out that people with jobs waiting for them in Alaska were granted emergency exception to drive through, but Canada made it very difficult. They had to drive through in four days or less and register a travel plan (which was monitored by the Canadians). We recognize that we had our choice of camping spots because there were so few RVers in Alaska this summer.
People are flying to Alaska, and renting vehicles like crazy this summer. We were lucky to get our unusual rental schedule--8 nights in a camper van, 2 nights in a hotel, 7 nights in a Class C motor home, and 4 nights in cabins. Having a little change in accommodations was fun for us. The company that we rented the RVs from was already booked up for the entire summer--the first time that had happened to them. She has had a new motor home sitting in storage in Washington for a year because the Canadians won't let it be driven across their country. Bigger RV companies had the same problem on a bigger scale. Rental car companies sold off much of their inventory in 2020, and haven't been able to replace it. So we heard of car rentals going for $2,500 per week this summer. We also saw that people were renting U-Haul trucks to vacation in, because it was the cheapest and only alternative.
Our favorite activities seemed to be those we did on our own. Even though Alaska is full of guided tours, we loved hiking and kayaking without a guide. We give a five-star recommendation to Valdez Stay and Play, who helped us to go kayaking in beautiful places at a great price.
Because we had around 20 hours of daylight, we really stretched some of our days into the nights. We found that hiking in the evening was a great alternative, because this really is the land of the midnight sun. The picture below was taken on a hike at midnight.
We had read that The Milepost is the "bible" of Alaska vacation planning. We would have to agree, and we used it every day. The book is quite thick, and includes all the highways that you may drive through Canada to get to Alaska. Since we didn't need that part, we basically cut our book in half and only took the sections about Alaska to save space in our suitcase. We would recommend buying one in advance and looking through it, as we found it took a while to understand how to find things and read it in the right direction.
Anyone that has trouble sleeping with the lights on might have trouble sleeping in an RV in Alaska. Even though we had all the blinds closed and all the lights off, the overhead vents let in a lot of light. Denisa snapped this picture around 4 a.m. to illustrate how much light was coming in through the vent just over our bed. We tried wearing eye masks, but didn't like that. Our best suggestion is to wear yourself out with fun Alaska activities during the day, so you can sleep through anything at night.
We would estimate that grocery and gasoline prices are 10-20% higher in Alaska over what we are used to paying in the lower 48 states. But buying our groceries and cooking gave us healthy meals at bargain prices. We are glad to report that in three weeks of traveling, we always felt good because we were eating well and getting plenty of exercise. 
Traveling to Alaska in 2021 was a unique year. After having no visitors in 2020, Alaskans are glad to see tourists again. It was also unique in that the only way to get here is by airplane. The cruise ship docks are silent, and the RV caravans can't get through Canada. So perhaps we enjoyed a more tranquil state in 2021. But we will always remember the Summer of 2021 when we wandered God's wonders in Alaska.
We visited that Musk Ox farm also. We put aluminum foil on the bedroom windows to block that midnight sun. And we so agree that Mile Post is well worth the cost. We will always remember our trip to Alaska especially because I had a stroke and had to be flown to MD as Leonard had that long drive back.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness! I didn't realize that your trip to Alaska ended in a plane ride! What stories you have to tell!
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