Alaska is such a ridiculously incredible place to visit. The landscape there is so surreal and unlike anywhere else we’ve ever been to but I’m guessing you don’t need much convincing on that front if you’re already searching for the best way to travel through Alaska.
Well, I’m not just gonna tell you how to travel across Alaska but also point out why this is one of the best ways to travel in Alaska.
Short answer – the best way to travel through Alaska is by going on a cruise.
Not every destination in the world lends itself to a cruise being the best way to travel across them.
For instance, in England, there are so many other ways you should definitely travel across the country before even considering a cruise.
In Alaska however, any other option would be quite hard and leave you missing out on most of the main sights you want to see here.
Okay, so why a cruise through Alaska?
Well for starters Alaska is ginormous and so much of its land mass is uninhabited so the infrastructure when it comes to train networks or road networks just isn’t there.
And nor should it be. There are some things in nature that are best left as is and Alaska understands this so some of the most gorgeous places you will want to visit can only be done via boat.
For example, the fjords with the glaciers and icebergs. So many of these would be almost impossible to visit by any other means and on a cruise you can just sail right up to them.
If you’re lucky, you can even catch a glacier calving (which is when bits of it break off to form icebergs) though heads up, if you’re not looking, by the time you hear it, it’s already gone.
Also, the innate beauty of a cruise in Alaska is that you have all your travel gear with you so you don’t have to worry about the weather changing or that you didn’t pack things you need with you (for instance, if you arrived on a smaller boat – which again would be quite limited in that there’s only so much distance you can cover on that).
And trust me, that weather can change on a dime.
If it’s suddenly rainy, you’ll have your coat and even an umbrella, frost sets in, you have your winter coats at the ready. You get my drift.
And then there’s also the convenience of not having to pack and unpack.
Now, there’s so much in Alaska that you can see right from the cruise ships, but one huge advantage of travelling through Alaska on a cruise is that the cruise excursions you have are actually quite perfect for Alaska. I’ll explain.
For instance, when you go on a cruise and say you stop off in Barcelona, your cruise ship docks and then you’re there for 10 hours to explore the city.
That’s just never enough time to properly explore Barcelona. A city like this needs days at the minimum to explore properly.
Then you carry on to another gorgeous city and like Lisbon and again, a day is never enough time to explore Lisbon.
*Mind you though, these are great ways to get a taster into the cities and allow you decide which one you want to return to for even longer.
Well, Alaska is different in that way.
Almost everywhere you want to visit in Alaska at each stop can be explored properly in a 10 hour period.
The cute city of Ketchikan, crabbing, whale watching and even exploring the capital city of Juneau can be done individually over a 10 – 12 hour period so you actually leave feeling like you’ve gotten a great sense of the place you’re visiting.
It’s amazing and such a huge advantage of travelling across Alaska on a cruise.
And when the Northern Lights come out, a cruise ship is actually a fantastic place to be on to see them.
Again, I’ll explain why. In Iceland, when the Northern Lights would come out, we would have to go outside of the city of Reykjavik or any big settlements with lots of lights so that we could see the Northern Lights light up the night sky.
It’s hard to see them in cities due to all the ‘light pollution’.
Well, the reason why we’re okay driving out to the middle of nowhere in Iceland is due to the distinct lack of wildlife to be terrified of.
The scariest thing you can find in Iceland is an Arctic Fox and they’re not just more terrified of you than you are of them, they’re also the size of a Chihuahua and not in the least bit interested in doing anything to you let alone coming near you.
Alaska is a different kettle of fish entirely.
You’ve got bears (and the bears in Alaska grow quite big), you’ve got wolves, wolverines (which are actually quite vicious) and you can even get mountain lions here.
Suffice to say, you wouldn’t want to just go travelling to the middle of nowhere at midnight, to escape the light pollution and catch the Northern Lights when you’re in Alaska.
Especially not if you wanna set up your camera to catch photos or videos of them when you’re out in the dark.
On a cruise ship, you can just relax and even watch them from the convenience of your bed.
So yeah, if you were unsure about how to travel across Alaska, after years of trying to figure it out ourselves, deciding and then going on a cruise across Alaska, we can tell you firsthand here that it’s absolutely one of the best ways to explore Alaska.
If you wanna find out more, here are the best things to do in Alaska.
Also, here’s what it was like going whale watching in Alaska.
And remember how I said you get to sail down the fjords and see the glaciers up close. Here’s what that is like.
Oh and also, we did go crabbing in Alaska too!
Have fun on your trip to Alaska.
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