Alaska Planning

Sue & I did the Alaska trip last summer May 19^th to July 6^th. Sue was apprehensive but the trip without reservations went fine. From SE Wisconsin it took 8 days to get to Fairbanks averaging 8 hours of driving a day. We drove 9,000 miles and spent $9,500 including groceries, admissions, campgrounds, gas, souvenirs, gifts, boat trip to Seldovia from Homer, and glacier-whale boat trips from Seward and Valdez. Most lunches we ate out, breakfast and dinner in the camper. This was not a camping trip for us, but a road trip bringing along our room. We were early in the season so the only reservations we made were for Denali two days before we got to the park. The Alaskan Highway puts out orange flags (meaning slow down a lot) where there are frost heaves, they were mostly fixed by the time we returned in July. July and August are the big seasons for Alaska camping, we saw many RVs and escorted RV tours heading up as we returned home.

Our 179 has the black pipe support issue, reinforce the bracket before you go.

We spent 4 days in Seward, Homer, Valdez, Whitehorse-Yukon and Dawson City-Yukon. We also stayed several days in Fairbanks, Denali, Palmer and Dawson Creek-Alberta. The best glacier boat trip we took was in Valdez on the Stan Stephens 8-1/2 hour trip to the Mears Glacier. Favorite cities were Seward and Dawson City-Yukon.

We had no problems finding gasoline (fill up when you reach ½ tank), laundromats are at most private campgrounds and there was no problem finding groceries. I typically carried a full tank of water, for us that was enough for 4 days with 6 showers.

Private campgrounds are gravel lots with close sites; the most we paid was $60 a night in Homer & Valdez that was fine with us as we wanted to be able to walk to the attractions. While traveling we stayed in provincial parks, federal parks, city parks, Walmart, Great Canadian Superstore, private campgrounds and Minnesota rest stops. I would avoid the Pioneer Campground in Whitehorse. July 1^st is Canada Day, campgrounds may be full.

We found the “Traveler’s Guide to Alaskan Camping” by Mike & Terri Church better than the Milepost to find campgrounds. Also useful were Janet Sedlar’s RV convection oven cookbooks.