Read an Excerpt
Alaska On The Go
Exploring The 49th State With Children
By Erin Kirkland UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA PRESS
Copyright © 2014 University of Alaska Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60223-222-8
CHAPTER 1
WHEN TO GO
I am a firm believer in four-season travel with kids, especially in Alaska, where each month has its own personality and unique activities. That said, certain times of the year are definitely more challenging to manage with children than others. Here is an overview of Alaska's seasons, and the pros and cons of visiting during each.
Summer
Without a doubt, summer reigns in Alaska for access to attractions and ease of travel. The infamous "midnight sun" and plethora of activities mean tons of fun for the entire family, but at a price.
[up arrow] PROS
• Seasonal activities like flightseeing, fishing, and glacier/wildlife cruising are in full swing.
• Airlines beef up route schedules, offering frequent flights to/from Alaska on a daily basis.
• Weather is usually warmer, ranging from 80°F in Fairbanks to 58°F in southeast Alaska.
• Animals are more active during the summer months.
• Best availability for airfares, hotels, and attractions can be found mid-May through late August. Summer is also an excellent time to consider a road trip to, from, or around Alaska.
[down arrow] CONS
• Expect to pay premium rates for all aspects of your trip, including airfare.
• Popular attractions and areas of interest are extremely crowded, especially on days when large cruise ships visit port cities of southeast Alaska or the Alaska Railroad delivers those same cruise-tour passengers to areas like Denali National Park.
• Reservations for many hotels, tours, and car rental agencies must be made early in the season, with little wiggle room for changing plans.
Autumn
Crisp nights, changing leaves, and active wildlife hold much appeal for many Alaska visitors. Autumn actually shows up near the end of August, and hot deals often appear at the same time.
[up arrow] PROS
• Excellent end-of-season airfares offer relief from high-priced travel to and from Alaska.
• Some popular attractions remain open for residents and autumn travelers, featuring uncrowded boats, buses, and trains around the state.
• Scenery features colorful landscapes and opportunities to view moose, bears, and other wildlife.
[down arrow] CONS
• Many attractions do shut down after Labor Day, necessitating more independent travel planning. Travelers who thrive on guided tours may not find fall visits a good fit.
• Weather is unpredictable: warm and sunnyish one day, snowing the next. Prepare for the latter and cheer when daybreak brings the former. Look for temperatures around 45–50°F during the day, dropping down to 32–40°F at night for most of Alaska.
• Some wildlife, especially moose, are busy with mating season. Parents should heed all warnings to avoid "the Rut," when male moose are cranky and possess big attitudes and enormous antlers called racks.
Winter
Winter travel, an evolving niche market in Alaska, requires a lot of planning. However, winter can also be the most authentic time to visit, with sled dogs, northern lights, and lots of snow. Winter usually arrives in full force around mid-November and sticks around until at least April.
[up arrow] PROS
• Airfare is at its most reasonable, save for the weeks surrounding Thanksgiving and Christmas.
• Families who participate in snow sports at home will revel in the abundance of kid-friendly alpine and Nordic skiing, snowshoeing, dog mushing, and snowmobiling.
• The aurora borealis, or northern lights, can dominate the night sky, offering a swirling, multicolored experience until very early in the morning.
• Admission to attractions like museums and cultural centers is often bargain-priced to encourage visitors.
• Community carnivals, festivals, and events related to winter are great ways to engage with residents.
[down arrow] CONS
• It's cold—sometimes really, really cold—and families will likely need to invest in quality gear to fully reap the benefits of outdoor fun.
• Expect temperatures to range from 45°F in southeast Alaska to –45°F in interior areas like Fairbanks.
• Short, dark days can be difficult for some families. On a December day in Anchorage, sunrise can arrive around 10 a.m. and sunset can begin around 3 p.m.
• The most popular and best-known attractions will be closed. Southeast Alaska in particular is quiet during the winter months, with limited hours at many museums and visitor centers.
What's the Real Deal with the Daylight/Darkness?
It's a common question among visitors, and one of the most unique aspects of inhabiting a state so far north. Alaska sits near the top of our planet, and the Arctic Circle, at 66° 33' latitude north, crosses the state 125 miles north of Fairbanks in the interior region of the state. The "circle" is the point at which the sun doesn't rise for a day in the winter (winter solstice) and doesn't set for a day in the summer (summer solstice). For arctic communities, this means a winter of almost total darkness, since the farther north one goes, the less the sun rises above or sets below the horizon. For most of Alaska, though, the winter and summer solstice events mean long stretches of daylight and/or darkness, but the sun does rise and set, albeit later or earlier, depending upon the season.
While it's kind of cool to stay up late during a summer vacation, I caution that while your family might be okay with a late-night free-for-all through a campground or hotel property, the rest of the visiting population might not appreciate it. Allow plenty of time for settling down; shut off electronics, read a book, sing songs around the campfire, and get ready for bed just like you would at home. Ask your hotel if blackout shades are available (most rooms have them) or use that extra blanket in the closet as a curtain. If traveling in an RV or sleeping in a tent, bedtime might not be so simple. Try the above tricks, but also add the caveat that an MP3 player may be used for a listening session of quiet music or a story as long as kids stay in their sleeping bags. Above all, remain calm and remember the mantra repeated by thousands of Alaska parents: They can always sleep later.
During an Alaska winter, the opposite strategy must sometimes be employed, especially with respect to babies and younger children who are still under the spell of darkness-equals-bedtime. If yawns start appearing around 5 p.m. and your family hasn't even had dinner, try taking the kids outside for a ski or snowshoe, or visit a sledding hill between dinner and bedtime. The golden rule of maintaining your family's routine pays off in Alaska during these crazy seasons of darkness or light—and might just save your sanity.
Spring
Alaskans go slightly bonkers in springtime, reveling in daylight and jumping about in their rubber boots through the slush. Everybody, from mama bears to tour companies, takes advantage of the warming weather to get the heck outdoors.
[up arrow] PROS
• While tours and attractions are not yet in full swing, a variety of options are available, including gray whale tours, ferry trips, museums, and excellent spring skiing.
• Airfares and attractions are affordable during this shoulder season of travel. Some airlines begin seasonal service in April, so do your homework.
• Daylight arrives rapidly, animals begin to emerge from winter hiding places, and humans are outside almost constantly. May and June are known as springtime in Alaska.
[down arrow] CONS
• Spring is also known as breakup, meaning slush, mud, and road grit are everywhere. Trees are not yet bearing leaves, and the landscape is generally brown or gray.
• Weather can be a bit bipolar, with late snowstorms blowing in from the north or warm, strong Chinook (wind) storms rushing up from the south.
• Later in the spring, bears and moose bring out their babies, so these mamas are on high watch for threats. It is imperative to watch out for the new families, even to the detour of a favorite hiking trail or attraction.
CHAPTER 2
HOW TO GET HERE
Once your family has reached agreement about when to visit Alaska, the next important question is how to get here: by airplane, boat, or automobile. Due to its location near the top of planet Earth, Alaska is relatively difficult to reach and always expensive no matter which option you choose, especially during the popular summer months. For parents traveling with children, getting to Alaska can be half the fun or provide all the stress, depending upon your family's personality and expectations.
As you research potential destinations, always keep Alaska's size in mind. The state is twice the size of Texas, and, in fact, if you were to place a map of Alaska over a map of the contiguous United States, it is quickly obvious that the Last Frontier stretches across most of America, sea to shining sea.
Alaska is also a state of roads and waterways that don't always connect where you want them to, or even where it might seem logical. Additionally, multilane highways and bustling airports are noticeably absent, save for Anchorage, and thus moving between cities during a typical weeklong vacation can result in more time on the road or in the air than actual boots-on-the-ground experiences. Knowing how to get to Alaska is as crucial as determining what your family will do once you arrive, and parents should always keep travel time in mind when making plans.
Below is a description of the various transportation options available in Alaska, with pros and cons for each. In many cases, however, one way will be the only way, and therefore visitors should budget accordingly.
By Air
Alaska Airlines is top dog among air transport to Alaska from the Lower 48. With a fleet of hundreds of planes whisking people and tons of cargo throughout the state, Alaska Airlines will likely be your air carrier. However, during the busy summer months, other airlines seize the opportunity to give Alaska Airlines a run for its money, and thus fly to and from Anchorage quite frequently between the months of May and October. This active competition occasionally can provide travelers with more options to secure the flights they wish at closer to a price they can afford. That said, it is not unusual to spend $700 on a round-trip ticket for one person. For some smaller communities, like Sitka, Wrangell, and Ketchikan in southeast Alaska, Alaska Airlines is the only air carrier available, so do your homework when researching flights, especially if your final destination is not Anchorage.
By Car
Oh, to be on a freewheeling road trip with the kids happily singing in the backseat, playing automobile bingo, sharing chocolate-chip cookies, and writing journal entries at roadside rest stops. Riiiight.
Traveling to Alaska by car is great if your family has (a) the time and (b) the moxie to drive for hours and hours on a two-lane road with few services or attractions. While people have been driving the Alaska-Canada Highway since the 1930s, when Chevy station wagons were packed to the ceiling with kids, dogs, camping gear, and spare tires, a road trip north still requires meticulous preplanning and an independent spirit. At a distance of 2,638 miles from the Washington-Canada border to Anchorage, driving the famous Alcan will surely be an unforgettable trip for your kids.
[up arrow] PROS: Great for families using the journey as the vacation. Driving also offers a chance to travel more independently, stopping when and where you want. Plus, the scenery is pretty cool.
[down arrow] CONS: The rising cost of fuel means driving is more expensive every year. Services are also sparse along some portions of the route. Drivers must be alert and able to solve problems, both big and small, on their own. For those with limited time in Alaska itself, driving can be limiting.
Tips: Buy The Milepost (www.milepost.com), a click-by-click diary of all things highway from the Pacific Northwest and Montana to Deadhorse up on the North Slope of the Arctic, and every place in between. A must-have for anyone driving to or from Alaska via Canada. It's an interesting read as well, and my kids love to navigate by its colorful, engaging pages.
Mulling a road trip to Alaska? Here are more important considerations:
SEASON
As stated previously, summer is the most advantageous time to drive to Alaska. Roads are (hopefully) snow free, the weather is more manageable, and daylight is near continuous the farther north you travel. Summertime is also short, so plan to drive between late May and mid-August, when snowstorms or other nasty weather surprises are less likely to occur. That said, summer is also construction time (Alaskans joke that the state has but two seasons: winter and construction). Hours-long delays are not at all unusual, turning a 10-hour drive into a 14- or even 16-hour slog, so factor such into your driving itinerary.
VEHICLE
Many families drive their own vehicles, laden like pack mules with spare tires, tents, and extra gasoline. Alaska can be brutal on an automobile, even in these modern times of asphalt and wide shoulders. You see, Alaska's wildly swinging temperatures have created potholes, gravel washes, and something called a "frost heave," a ribbon-candy effect on an otherwise lovely stretch of road, causing a car to bounce higher than a super ball if the driver is caught unaware. Roadside repair is difficult to find, with little cellphone service and only a handful of AAA-approved towing shops available way out in the wilderness. (By the way, if you do have AAA, consider the extra dollars for extended service, like towing. It is likely that if your car breaks down, it will be a lengthy tow.) So, when driving a personal vehicle, pack a tool kit, the car's manual, a full-size spare tire, and extra gas, just in case. It doesn't hurt, either, to carry extra water, food, sleeping bags, and toys, even if you are not camping.
A popular way to experience the back roads of Canada and Alaska and burn up the miles is aboard an RV, rented at either end of the journey or on a round-trip basis. For those comfortable driving such vehicles, an RV can be the perfect compromise between road tripping and sightseeing—and it provides a comfy place to stay along the way. Indeed, one of the most popular ways to see Alaska is via RV, with many companies offering one-way deals from Anchorage to sister outfits in the Lower 48. Some families choose to spin around the state for a while before returning the RV and flying home while others opt for a ferry trip one way, driving the other. Whatever your desire, RV travel can be a great way to provide some extra family time without the burden of seeking overbooked hotels/motels or eating in restaurants every night. The Milepost provides helpful listings of campgrounds and pull-outs suitable for RV travelers within its pages. I'll talk more about RVs and driving in "Road Tripping with the Fam."
CANADA
All roads to Alaska pass through Canada and, thanks to a 2007 international law that says all travelers to and from Canada via the United States need to provide a passport, it behooves you to begin planning now if you want to drive to Alaska. You may want to give your car insurance carrier a call to find out options for coverage on your own vehicle or a rented vehicle while within the borders of our neighboring country. Be aware, too, that should only one parent be crossing the border into Canada, a signed, notarized note must accompany that child's passport. I found this out the hard way one summer at Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory, when taking our youngest to Haines, Alaska, with a friend and her three kids. Let's just say the resulting conversation nearly ended badly, with me finally offering to leave said preschooler in the agent's office, to be retrieved on the return trip.
Those travelers with prior felony convictions in the United States may be denied entry into Canada, and both countries have strict rules for firearms, explosives, and the like. Check the U.S. Department of State website for an exhaustive list of what one can or cannot bring back and forth (help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/737/kw/canada/sno/1).
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Excerpted from Alaska On The Go by Erin Kirkland. Copyright © 2014 University of Alaska Press. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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