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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Alaska trip with a toddler. Where to look for photo op. | |
I agree with Stan, skip Fairbanks. you can't see all of Alaska in 9 days, so pick the most bang for your buck.
And to piggyback off of what Keith wrote about Seward. Here is what I did, and it worked really well. My first day in Seward I took the really big boat tour boat. It held like 100 people or so. They take you all around, you get to see the glaciers, whales, etc. But it's a big boat, so they have a predetermined course. Then the 2nd day I booked with the same company a smaller tour boat that held 10 to 12 tops. With that one, since it's smaller, you can ask the captain to go to specific locations or look for specific things. What you will ask him is to go visit the things you saw from the bigger boat but can now see from a smaller more intimate boat. If I had done the smaller boat first, I would have had no clue as to what to ask to see except generic stuff.
Whoops... I don't want to retype what I wrote, but I realized it was from Valdez that I took my whale/glacier tour boats. If Valdez is not on your list, you should plot it out to see if it can fit in. I originally was not going to Valdez, as I made my list of things I for sure wanted to see, and some optional spots, it was on my optional list. Well something dropped off on my to do list, and so I decided to head down to Valdez. It ended up being the highlight of my trip I think, even more than Denali.
Another note, remember you will be driving out in the sticks with no population to speak of. You should check to see if your rental has satellite radio and if it works up there. Other wise, there are NO radio stations to tune in on your car. Now I enjoy silence, and often drive without any music on, but after 3 or 4 days, anything would have been great. And I had planned for that as I was bringing a couple of CD's to play in the car, but they got left at home. And as opposed to being here in the lower 48, I then couldn't find any CD's to even purchase. It was 3 days of looking before I found a gas station that had some CD's, and they were like old CD's, I was listening to the Beach Boys and Faith Hill for the next week. When you are out driving and stop at a town, it may only have a population of 25. It will have a gas station, maybe a motel and small food store, maybe....
Alaska is a blast, but it is very remote and different.
Jim
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