Alaska Vacations

Alaska Vacations #1: Whale Watching Tour is a great idea for the whole family. You can typically also see many other types of marine birds, porpoise, humpback whales and the occasional Orca.

Whale watching tours can be found in Glacier Bay/Gustavus, Homer, Juneau, Kodiak, Pelican, Petersburg, Prince William Sound, Seward, Chichagof Island, and Valdez.

Vacation in Alaska #2:Visit one of Alaska's wonderfulNational Parks.

Denali National Park is known for it's wildlife variety and visibility. Caribou, grizzly, loon, golden eagle are likely sights as you travel the 85 mile long park road.

Gates of the Arctic National Park, in north Alaska, has backpacking, camping, rough hiking, rock and mountain climbing, and all the river activities.

Near to Gates of the Arctic is Kobuk Valley National Park. It sits within the Arctic Circle and you will have the place virtually to yourself. Hiking is great but rough because there are no trails. There are no facilities within the park either.

Glacier Bay National Park is on land that was only revealed within the last 200 years as the glacier that covered it shrank away. Cruise ship, tour boat or kayak are the main ways to explore this park.

Katmai National Park vacation contains 15 active volcanoes. You can watch the country's largest population of brown bears catch fish out of the water.

Kenai Fjords National Park is noted for the Harding Icefield. Home to 700 square miles if ice and glaciers. You can see Exit Glacier by hiking or tour bus. Boat and plane is the way to get around to camping and biking the area.

Alaska Vacation Ideas #3:Take a trip to the Arctic Circle land of the midnight sun where the summer sun never sets. Solstice Point at the foot hills of the Brooks Range is a favorite with locals for Mid-night Sun Weddings! Enjoy the majestic scenery of the tiaga and the tundra.

Alaska Vacation Ideas #4:Have you ever seen a Bald Eagle? Try the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve. A natural phenomenon brings over 3,000 eagles into the Chilkat Valley beginning in early October and lasting until January.

The peak of the gathering usually occurs in mid-November. Drive 18 miles from Haines on the Haines Highway to find excellent eagle viewing areas. Newly-created pullouts along the highway are provided for eagle watchers and photographers.

Interpretive displays, walking trails, and shelters now enhance the experience. To see this unique gathering is to witness a true wildlife phenomenon of international scale.

Alaska Vacations #5:Tour the Columbia Glacier, located just 30 miles from Valdez. At 435 square miles it's Alaska's largest tidewater glacier.

Tours are offered by several companies to view the glacier and the massive amount of icebergs that it produces. The Columbia Glacier is actually receding. The process is causing huge blocks of ice to create an impassible moraine. Floating ice fills the bay in an ever changing frozen landscape.

Some of this ice floats all the way out to the Gulf of Alaska, where it becomes a hazard to shipping. One cause for the Exxon Valdez's departure from its shipping lanes was the icebergs.

Alaska Vacations #6:How about an Iditarod Sled Dog Tour. The world famous Iditarod is a 1,100 mile dog sled race between Anchorage and Nome. Take a ride on a dog sled cart.

Learn about the Iditarod race and the dog mushing drivers. Visit the dogs that pull the sleds, even hold and cuddle adorable husky puppies.

Alaska Vacations #7:Ketchikan Bear Watching is a great idea. Admiralty Island is renowned as one of the most famous bear sanctuaries in the world.

The observatory deck at Traitor's Cove Bear Watching Observatory is a great place to watch black bear feeding on the salmon that are fighting their way up stream to spawn. These tours and more are available at Dolly Varden Alaska.

Vacation Ideas in Alaska #8:The Alaskan towns of Skagway and Dyea were the jumping-off points for the for the 600-mile trek to the goldfields along the Klondike River in Canada's Yukon Territory.

Klondike Goldrush National Historic Park offers exhibits and displays, restored buildings, ranger presentations and films about the world famous Alaskan Gold Rush of the late 1800s.

Alaska Vacations #9:130 miles north of Fairbanks is Artic Circle Hot Springs Resort. Dating back to the 1890s, Circle Hot Springs attracts visitors all year.

The springs are 140 degrees F at its source and produce 386 gallons of steaming water each minute. They were discovered by a prospector who trailed a wounded moose and came across an unusually warm creek.

Circle Hot Springs Resort offers historic accommodations, fine dining, plus an Olympic-sized pool filled with water from the nearby Circle Hot Springs

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