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Daughter and I are planning our first trip to Alaska in September 2022. Mostly sightseeing and possibly fishing. Any suggestions on things we must see and do? Although we’re both in pretty good shape, I’ll be 70 next year, so nothing too strenuous.

Try to arrange about a 2 hour site seeing flight. The whole state is view property. Mountains, glaciers, rivers, and wildlife. Expensive, but damned well worth it.

Bus tour through Denali.

Silvers will be running pretty good about that timeframe, hit Allison Point in Valdez and catch your limit, hit the Denali Highway and spend a night at Alpine Creek Lodge, those are some great folks running that place. Take the train to Seward, it's on my list of things to do that I haven't done yet. Flight see Mt McKinley with a stop on a glacier.

Early September you can pick up silvers in Seward from shore or charter. Halibut, silvers and kings can be had out of Homer. You may have to sort through some pinks. We always insist visitors do a flight seeing tour in Denali and/or Harding Ice Field as well as a glacier cruise out of Seward or Whittier. Enjoy!

First question you have to ask yourself is where in Ak? That's almost like saying you're going to Europe, what should I see?
What would you like to see? Any must have's?

I am interested in what information might be gathered from this thread. I have never been on a cruise but hear universally great reviews for those going to Alaska. Just trying to gain an initial clue on how it all might work if I wanted to also do the train ride or air tour or....anything else that might be good with a wife who might do fishing but isn't going to hike.

I did a Cruise, just OK. Next trip, flew to Anchorage, rented a car (all preplanned) drove & stayed in AirB&B's for 10 day. Flew out of
Talketna to land on a Glacier at Denali, took the Bus ride into Denali, went to Seward, Homer, & other stops. Had a GREAT trip. So much to see!!!

Been there twice and I don’t think one lifetime is long enough to see and do everything. Talkeetna, Denali, Seward and Homer were all great.

Wife and I rented a motorhome in Anchorage and put 1,000 miles on it in two weeks one September awhile back.
I didn't fish but the highlights of our trip were the Alaska Museum in Anchorage, Kenai Fjords Natl. Park boat tour, Hurricane Turn scenic train out of Talkeetna, and Denali Park bus tour.
Stopped at innumerable places along the way to camp and sightsee.

I've 53 years here. Need another 150.....

"Wife and I rented a motorhome in Anchorage and put 1,000 miles on it in two weeks one September awhile back."

That all? Wife and I once put 1400 on the truck/boat trailer and another 100 on the boat in 4 days. Remote cabin in Interior badly needed an emergency roof patch ....

If the dealer ever gets the outboard fixed before freeze-up, might do something similar yet this year. Should be there now, in fact. the moose are just running wild up there, I bet.....

UAF museum in Fbks is worth a look also. September is a great month. With fall colors on , Interior is fantastic!

Kennicott Mine at McCarthy is also. Fascinating history. 63 miles of bad road from Chitna will take you 3 1/2-4 hours at the speed one should travel at, to get there. Was just there a few days ago. Take two days/nights there if you want to do some hiking, otherwise get a cabin or B&B, etc. for one night.

Mining facilities located below big valley, center-right, mines up high. Pic taken from parking lot side + a mile hike up valley. Shuttles will take you 1.5 miles to McCarthy and 5 miles to Kennicott (NPS) buildings. People still live there.

Pics taken 1-2 weeks ago.



Matanuska Glacier (a 2 hour guided tour @ $65/person NR is available to take you to/onto the glacier - no public access otherwise.)

Most of my trips to AK have been either climbing trips or hunting trips. But I have had the opportunity four times do extend the trip and do some tourist stuff. Things that I would definitely do again include:

Rent a car and drive to Denali National Park and take the bus tour of the park.

Drive through the tunnel to Whittier just to see the town and hear about its' history.

Drive back and make a stop at the Alaska Wildlife Center on the way to Seward and take the boat tour of Kenai Fiords.

Then drive to Homer and get on a party boat to fish for halibut.

Fly on one of the mail planes (that's the cheapest way to fly around Alaska) from Anchorage to Juneau. Take the Alaska Marine Highway (ferry) from Juneau to Skagway. Take a day trip on the White Pass Railway. Skagway is nice clean small town with only a few hundred permanent residents. Real nice place to visit. When a cruise ship docks, five thousand people descend on the little town in a mad rush to "see" Skagway. When the cruise ship leaves, it returns to a nice, clean, quiet little town.

Take the mail plane to Sitka and spend a couple of days there. Sitka is a lot like Skagway but not as many cruise ships stop there.

Then go back to Anchorage and tour the Alaska museum there.

You can rent an SUV and drive the highway to McCarthy. It's pretty cool. But don't tell the car rental company that you are going to McCarthy.

Since your daughter will be on the trip, you should probably avoid the GABC.

Then fly home and wish you could do it all over again.

Not a bad itinerary, but I made a few additions...

Also, if you're even a little concerned about contributing to the AK economy, just know that 99% of the businesses that cater to tourists are not local, are owned either by multinational corporations (and hire non-citizen labor), or they're owned by lower 48'ers who have summer businesses in AK.

Even when the Denali Park road is closed to private vehicles, it is often open for bus tours. It generally doesn't close until the snow gets too deep for safe passage of the bus. Last time I checked there was a lottery to determine who can drive the road. But it has been a few years, so that may have changed.

I kind of guessed that local Alaskans might think of party boats as undesirable. But a fishing trip on a party boat is a lot cheaper than a six pack. I guess it all depends on how much you want to spend.

As for the term "mail plane", I am referring to the several regularly scheduled regional airlines including Peninsula Airlines (PennAir) that fly’s mostly around the Katmai Peninsula and Bristol Bay. Bering Air uses eight-passenger Caravan turbo props and they have hubs in Kotzebue and Nome. They have their act together. I’ve also flown with a couple of services in the panhandle. Air Excursions uses little bush planes. Once they had to leave half of our baggage on the tarmac in Kake because the plane was too small to carry everything. I’ve also flown with Wings. They also use Caravans and seem to have a professional operation. Wright Air flies out of Fairbanks to many of the smaller communities, in the region. 40-Mile Air flies out of Tok. Brooks Range Aviation flies out of Bettles. ERA-Hageland (RAVN) is another regional airline and they claim to be as big as all of the other regional airlines combined. I guess they have had some problems recently but are operating again. I suppose that there must be more, but these are the only ones that I'm familiar with. They fly every day or every other day from hub communities to bush communities, to deliver the mail. They are expensive but a lot cheaper than using a bush plane to get to the smaller bush communities. These regional airlines are often referred to as the mail planes. They are subsidized by the US Postal Service. That’s why they are so cheap.

That's good information about the rental car companies using GPS to track their cars. The info about Delta Rentals sounds like a good update.

The Denali road is closed to ALL vehicles at mile 42.

PenAir is out of business. RAVN went bankrupt, and the new owners only run the part 121 business with Dash-8’s to main hubs. Alaska Airlines is the only scheduled operator from Anchorage to the panhandle (which is what you wrote), not in and around southwest and the interior.

Well that shoots my first idea all to hell.

Get away from the crowds.
Fly out to Katmia and checkout the bears 🐻.



https://www.nps.gov/katm/planyourvisit/bear-watching.htm

Denali hwy is a beautiful place in September.

Berrys are few and far between some years.