Traveling Aug18-312007 by RV

Looking for HELP.

Hello I am planning my Honeymoon to alaska. My wife and I are both pretty outdoorsy, active and 30ish. We live in the UP of Michigan. We fly into Anc on the 18th and have already rented a RV from GAH. We will be staying until Aug 31st.

Now I am left with the daunting task of planning the Itinarary. We do want to visit Denali, Hot springs, Homer, ect...

Can anyone give me some advice? I have ready so many postings that I am starting to go nuts tryiong to figure it out.

Traveling Aug18-312007 by RV

How about this

18 ---- Anchorage 1night

19, 20, 21----Denali 3 nights

22, 23----Fairbanks (for hot springs) 2 nights

24----Matanuska Glacier area 1 night

25----Girdwood 1 night

26, 27, 28----- Homer 3 nights

29, 30----Seward 2 nights

You need to keep in mind there so many other places to see in Alaska. Once there plan your next visit. Meanwhile, congratulations. You chose a beautiful place for your honeymoon.

Traveling Aug18-312007 by RV

This is VERY long. I hope TA can handle it, but mostly I hope that our experiences will help you.....

You will enjoy the RV experience in Alaska. In my opinion it is the only way to go. We had three weeks. We did not go to Fairbanks, but did drive over to Valdez...beautiful drive, and also visited the Alaska State Fair in Palmer. We were there in August, as well, but I don%26#39;t remember the dates of the fair.

You do have, or are going to get, a copy of the Milepost, right? It is indispensible. Has great maps with all of the things to see marked by the excellent highway mileposts. Also ads. You can order it online. I carried it in my lap the whole trip, saying things like...';oooh, just up here is a place where they sell reindeer sausage';....not that I like reindeer sausage, but it sounded interesting.

We did a combo of state parks and RV parks. It was nice occasionally to have a shower in a space larger than a breadbox and to be able to wash clothes. In Talkeetna there is a city park under some trees, River Park Campground. At Denali we stayed in Riley Creek campground, very pleasant, under trees, walking distance of the Visitor Center, flush toilets, no hookups or showers, free dump station. Shuttle stop. Shuttle comes by about every half hour. Don%26#39;t miss the dog mushing exhibition.

Warning. If you intend to cook meals while at Denali, or tin that area, be sure to stock up on groceries way before you get there. We survived on convenience store stuff, awful. Your RV fridge will undoubtedly have a freezer section. After this experience, we kept things like hamburger and lamb chops and even frozen pizza there for future use.

If you should happen to be on the road from Wasilla to Palmer go to the musk ox farm. How they came to be here is an interesting story, but what they do with them is even better. They comb the underhairs from the oxen in the spring and send the stuff to Peru to be spun into yarn (';qiverit';. When it comes back a local native women%26#39;s coop knits it into wonderfully soft things...softer than cashmere...I bought a kind of combination smoke ring/ hood. We stayed that night at Matanuska River Park...city run. We were all alone in this beautiful place.

After Anchorage, the Seward Highway goes from 4 to 2 lanes and the Milepost warns that there are more accidents on the stretch from here to Girdwood than in all of Alaska.

In Seward we stayed at the municipally-run ';Waterfront Park'; which is just a strip on the beach for RV %26#39;s..$10.00 a night. But there are hot showers. No hookups, I think, because I remember being awakened early in the morning by a %26#39;neighbor%26#39; who was running his generator. Resurrection Bay is absolutely beautiful.

Sea Life Park here is very interesting. They got 50 million dollars from the Valdez oil spill settlement, and they do mostly research.

and rescue.

We took a 7-1/2 hour Kenai Fjords tour of the Bay, which I highly recommend. It included a stop at Fox Island for a salmon bake lunch. We saw impressive glaciers, %26#39;calving%26#39;, and wildlife like you cannot believe. We saw sea otters, puffin, cormorants, seagulls, murres, shearwaters, sea lions. A couple of porpoises played with us for awhile, following the boat.

The sociology of the RV parks (or camps) is really interesting. Most people are willing to talk and share tips and experiences. We met some very interesting people.

After Seward we went to Homer, with a 7 mile detour for Exit Glacier. At Homer,. you can camp for free on the ';spit';. There is also a city park, but when we drove up there it was too muddy, so we tried the ';spit';. DON%26#39;T. Ticky-tacky and dirty and can be rowdy. We took a paid site because they had ';showers';.....ha, ha. 6-9 am, 8-12 pm. Didn%26#39;t look like anyone had cleaned them in months.

The next day we moved to Oceanview RV Park, on the north end of town, which had hookups, spacious sites on a huge lawn, leading down to a a beautiful view of Kachemak Bay. A great shower room and a laundromat and pay telephone, gift shop, etc. (When you are RV%26#39;ing, in my opinion, you need one of these occasionally %26lt;grin%26gt;.) Here, sitting on a bench by the water, we saw a bald eagle high in a tree....and he stayed for a long time. We could also see five glaciers from this spot.

There is a very nice museum here, private, I think, but when we were there they had some very dramatic exhibits pertaining to the Valdez oil spill, inluding a tape of the captain trying to %26#39;explain%26#39; himself.

If you need an RV park in Anchorage....the Anchorage RV Park is on the outskirts of town, across the road from the Alaskan Heritage Center, which you MUST visit. The RV park is a very large, wooded area, with great modern bathrooms and a nice ';lodge'; area, even with a TV. We stayed there our last night. When I walked into the lodge I stared at the TV for a minute or two and a nice man asked if I wanted another channel. I had to explain that I hadn%26#39;t seen TV for three weeks. He assured me that the world hadn%26#39;t changed much.

Also here we saw a mother moose with two cubs (if that is what you call them). One of the other people in the area decided to get closer to the moose, and, believe me, they escaped with their lives. Never mess with a mother moose.

\

Have a great trip.

Puter - I really enjoyed reading your RV advice this morning . . . maybe I forgot if you did a trip report - this was great. Just for your information, baby moose are calves (as Mom is a cow and Dad is a bull) and Yes, more people are chased by moose in this state than bears. People think they are quiet and gentle like deer, but they don%26#39;t realize how huge moose are.

I agree with about the Anchorage RV park - one of the nicest in the state. You feel like you are in the middle of nowhere and you are just a few minutes from Anchorage.

MQTYooper: here in Denali, I would choose to stay in the Park - I believe you can reserve that now. If you would like to be in the Park, try to reserve a spot at Teklanika, then Savage, or Riley creek. Take the shuttle bus to Wonder lake . . . it%26#39;s incredible. Attend a doggie demo. You might enjoy taking a raft trip - use Denali Outdoor Center for that.

Do head to the Kenai Peninsula - Seward, Homer, etc. Do the Sealife center and a boat trip into Kenai Fjords. Many of the state parks/blm, etc. have great campgrounds - choose those over private ones. Most private ones are on a flat parking lot w/no trees and they stack you in like cordwood. At least that isn%26#39;t how I like to camp . . . and some smaller places are great. We usually camp in Ninilchik every summer - a few great campgrounds - ocean view and trees! :)

Let%26#39;s see - just relax as it%26#39;ll come together, and don%26#39;t forget, you%26#39;ll have your home on wheels, so you can change your agenda if you so desire . . . be flexible and only book the things you really have to. (like your Denali Park reservation) The rest, I would go with the flow - really! Isn%26#39;t that the point? Write again if you need more help and read any RV trip report, as that will be valuable to you. Congrats as well and good luck as you plan! :)

Thanks EVERYONE. We do plan on spending three nights at Denali Tel Camp Ground. Still looking for other Ideas and trying to plan but I do believe that going with the flow might not be a bad Idea. My future wife is a planner so I better keep looking.