Our Trip To Alaska

[ZooOnWheels]

I don't know if this is for my wife and I or for people wanting to trek into Alaska and looking for advise and information here, but either way, it's all wonderful.
We took a cruise through parts of Alaska, but afterwards we wanted to buy a class A diesel. After speaking with two elderly couples that bought a RV and said that our trip of six weeks of vacation, we'd be rushing it, do we decide to wait until we retired.

For those of you here that are contemplating a trip in any type of vehicle in Alaska we say,...GO,...GO ASAP ! lol 😁😀😊

I can talk all day about our trip. (on the ship as well) There is something different about Alaska vs all other mountain states in America. I don't if it's the shapes, snow or the feeling your soul & spirit gets taking in the beauty that God gave us all. It is astounding !

Because it's so sad that global warming is increasing faster than scientists thought, try to go asap. 👍

We actually walked on Mendenhall Glacier ! We visited others, but could only get close, but all of these around the world are melting very quickly. If you like snowy mountain tops, the snow amount per season is getting low. Watching all the animals that reside in in these location's including on and under the ice are reducing in numbers.

Be sure to visit all the little small tourists towns along the way. Their all freshly painted, clean and filled with great friendly people. There are small food Cafe's serving fresh native foods and fresh caught salmon, crap, lobster, white fish etc. Just watch out for them damn seagulls, they'll take your sandwich right out of your hands !!! 🤬. 🤣.

Whether your on a cruise or in your RV, you can take (in our case) excursions to watch whale's, go fishing (I caught a 34lb salmon) bird watching, otter quests, fish bakes, hunting, glacier walking. etc You do have to be aware in the summer months, the mosquitos are as big as pterodactyls ! 😀

We will be retiring in five years, so we're getting started now by researching Class A diesels and all the information on travels here on this wonderful website. Can't wait to see Alaska and across this beautiful country !!!
Kevin

[Jim_HiTek]

Pretty amazing the beauty nature gave us up there and Seward's Folly of $7 million ($0.02/acre) turned out to be a great bargain. I've visited up there in my RV and liked it so much I stayed 3 winters and 5 summers in Fairbanks and enjoyed welcoming friends and family who flew up to stay with me. That was fun. Rented a cabin in the winters because it's just too freakin' cold for living in an RV up there. Sometimes got to -70 F but I had a thermometer and the coldest I ever saw outside my cabin window was -55 F. Did drive around, visited the arctic circle on a tour with my brother, visited the Ice Museum and Chena hot springs, visited Denali in the RV too. Also took the ferry (with my RV aboard) down to Skagway I think?

What a great time every time I visited. Quite a long drive though. Takes 5 days to drive up there.

[twogypsies]

Originally Posted by Jim_HiTek

Quite a long drive though. Takes 5 days to drive up there.

From crossing the Canadian border we spent a month in Canada and the Yukon even before reaching Alaska. Then another two months in Alaska.

If doing this trip don't rush it.

[ZooOnWheels]

Originally Posted by Jim_HiTek

Pretty amazing the beauty nature gave us up there and Seward's Folly of $7 million ($0.02/acre) turned out to be a great bargain. I've visited up there in my RV and liked it so much I stayed 3 winters and 5 summers in Fairbanks and enjoyed welcoming friends and family who flew up to stay with me. That was fun. Rented a cabin in the winters because it's just too freakin' cold for living in an RV up there. Sometimes got to -70 F but I had a thermometer and the coldest I ever saw outside my cabin window was -55 F. Did drive around, visited the arctic circle on a tour with my brother, visited the Ice Museum and Chena hot springs, visited Denali in the RV too. Also took the ferry (with my RV aboard) down to Skagway I think?

What a great time every time I visited. Quite a long drive though. Takes 5 days to drive up there.

Yes,...it did !

My wife was offered a teachers position starting at $100,000 as their hard to come by because of the cold and the three or so months of darkness, but we needed the insurance where she worked. On the cruise we saw in the distance a island with a house. A year later or so we were watching a show ''Buying Alaska' like we always did, and there it was ! A retired NFL kicker and family. It was a island in Sitka which rarely gets below 40 degrees. It was a beautiful,...large log home, and there was a rope & slat Bridge the lead to a ''mother in-law'' log cabin house. It was I think, 1.8m. My dream !

We'd love to drive through Denali Park. Do you know the max length for an RV ?. The train would be great too.

[Jim_HiTek]

Originally Posted by ZooOnWheels

Yes,...it did !

My wife was offered a teachers position starting at $100,000 as their hard to come by because of the cold and the three or so months of darkness, but we needed the insurance where she worked. On the cruise we saw in the distance a island with a house. A year later or so we were watching a show ''Buying Alaska' like we always did, and there it was ! A retired NFL kicker and family. It was a island in Sitka which rarely gets below 40 degrees. It was a beautiful,...large log home, and there was a rope & slat Bridge the lead to a ''mother in-law'' log cabin house. It was I think, 1.8m. My dream !

We'd love to drive through Denali Park. Do you know the max length for an RV ?. The train would be great too.

Not sure you can actually drive your RV very far inside Denali park. Reason is that large tour buses need the roads and there are a lot of them. Second reason is that the roads are abused by winter and spring runoff so there's often a bunch of detours and blockages for large vehicles...except the commercial tour buses.

Check here though, and be sure to call them shortly before you want to arrive: Denali camping info...

"No campground in Denali can accommodate an RV over 40' long - if you have an RV larger than this, you will want to look outside of the park for a campground big enough to accommodate your rig. No campground in Denali has electrical or water hookups for RVs."

There are 3 RV parks outside Denali park.

Like I said earlier, I was there for 3 winters and 5 summers and the winters are brutal but doesn't take long to adjust. You'll see -40 F for months at a time. Mid May begins spring. If you're smart and buy the appropriate clothes it's pretty easy. I found everything I needed except boots at a thrift shop in August...most all left by college students heading down south and home.

And it's a hell of a lot of fun in Fairbanks with all the youngsters and their wives flooding the bars from the army base. Temporary residents. Also, the long term residents are very standoffish until you've spent some of the winter there because so many come up there with dreams of striking it rich and soon are broke and begging for free rent or money to get home.

Best if you have a 4 wheel drive vehicle like a Jeep or Subaru. It snows 6 feet in Fairbanks and throughout the interior but it's easy to work around with all the sunshine. In towns along the coast, it's just months and months of unrelenting rain, snow, ice. And little sun.

[kcfissel]

Originally Posted by ZooOnWheels

Yes,...it did !

My wife was offered a teachers position starting at $100,000 as their hard to come by because of the cold and the three or so months of darkness, but we needed the insurance where she worked. On the cruise we saw in the distance a island with a house. A year later or so we were watching a show ''Buying Alaska' like we always did, and there it was ! A retired NFL kicker and family. It was a island in Sitka which rarely gets below 40 degrees. It was a beautiful,...large log home, and there was a rope & slat Bridge the lead to a ''mother in-law'' log cabin house. It was I think, 1.8m. My dream !

We'd love to drive through Denali Park. Do you know the max length for an RV ?. The train would be great too.

You can take your RV about 30 miles into the park, to the Teklanika campground. Then you must ride the park bus. It's a great park, the busses are part of the entrance and camping fees. If you want to drive from the lower 48, get the Milepost magazine & Churches camping guide. You will just spin with excitement planning your trip. Don't even think of trying to do it in six weeks. It's a summer's adventure! Don't miss the Cinnamon bun center of the galactic cluster! https://tetsariver.com/

[twogypsies]

Originally Posted by ZooOnWheels

We'd love to drive through Denali Park. Do you know the max length for an RV ?.

The farthest campground you can stay is at Teklanika and it was no problem with our 40' motorhome. We spent 5 nights there and another 5 nights in the front campground, Riley Creek. Our days were full for the 10 days and we saw 'the' mountain 7 of 10 days and every single big animal in the park - more than once.

I don't know what train you're talking about but I heard you'll see nothing but forest.