Hey guys and gals, the wife and I have been thinking about moving to Alaska (new adventure). On that note, we'll be out in California for a wedding in mid-January, so we were thinking while there, why not just hop on a plane to Alaska and spend a week looking around.

We're wanting to look somewhere relatively close to Anchorage for a future residence, which could really mean anywhere from Talkeetna down to Soldotna (maybe 2.5hr radius?).

Any thoughts on activities or recommended places to stay while there? Probably won't have a rifle with me, so hunting may be out

Appreciate it!

Man screw being anywhere near a-town soldotna has everything you need minus good moose hunting but the fishing is great. Wasilla/palmer are good areas and have everything you need as well... We avoid anchorage most times... Talkeetna well you will driving into Wasilla to shop well they do have store up their but you will be going into Wasilla... If I had my way I live in soldotna or kenai...

Yeah definitely not looking in Anchorage proper maybe make a trip there on occasion for shopping or something, but not live there.

Would love somewhere to hunt various game on, but I think my wishlist has several conflicts that won't allow that will have to settle for a nice place to live and then travel a little for hunting.

IMHO there is much more fishing to be had, rather than hunting in AK. I happen to like the hunting though, but where else can you go and drive very few miles between streams/ponds that generally have something to catch in them, not to mention the salt....

Another place to consider is glennallen they do not have natrual gas so heating oil and wood stoves in the winter to heat house along with electric and your wife will kill you but man you have fishing.and Valdez down the road good bou hunting moose is ok. Or look towards Tok as well again your wife will not be happy another spot would be delta jct but glennallen is a good one but be warned folks in glennallen are an odd bunch...

I think the biggest conflict I've found so far is internet (well, electricity too for that to work lol). Work from home, so I need at least DSL, but when I look I'm not having great luck finding providers (depending how far out of "town" I look). Maybe I'm just not searching correctly.

That's really my limiting factor I'm finding right now in where we can potentially live.

GCI and ACS are the primary providers.

I know everyone likes to bash Anchorage (and it deserves it to a degree) but there are much worse places to live and I can't think of an location in the city that you can't be out in the woods in less than 30 minutes.

DSL

That's funny!

Yep. Anchorage is close to Alaska!


There, I said it!

Wishful thinking or am I making a big deal over nothing?

Define :dsl"


Wehave DSL that AS no longer advertises as it is so S L O W !

Not as slow as las's "bring the electrons one at a time at gunpoint", but slow.


1 meg slow.

Speed depends on location. If that's important (seems it is) check first.

Ha, literally the bare minimum of 128kbps would work. Faster would be great, but not required.

Out in the valley we have mta for Internet service..

Tundra telegraph is faster

For internet this might work for you: http://www.gci.com/offer/1gighub

We use HughesNet Satellite but it is not high speed like you have in the lower 48.
Best Wishes

But... maybe, just maybe ATT will make hughsnet even better! We can hope!

95 here today, 150 acre fire west of us about 20 miles, we didn't get called on it..... lucky... another department put in 10 hours or so on it, and 95 on Wednesday... its supposed to be October. LOL.

Tried ACS then GCI now ATT tired of lousy cell service. But its Alaska poor service is part of living here.

You get used to it and after a while you just lower your standards.

Go with GCI. They have the best coverage if that matters ….and their service comes with a free butt-out tool. They even install for free….the butt-out tool that is; once a month.

I've got a 10Mbps pipe in here through ACS

Cell coverage got a lot worse when ACS sold out and folks were forced to go to 4G through GCI or ATT when there isn't much of a 4G network...

As far as pure hunting opportunities go...you might consider the Susitna valley, Glen Allen or north of Anc somewhere. That puts you central to many species and opportunities.

THere was a LOT of ATT activity in Sept when we were up... pieces and parts being flown to towers by helo etc... I was amazed....Not sure if it will or won't help though.

How about recommendations on places to stay while there? Will just be the wife and I, I see lots of lodges and b&b's, any favorites? Same for eateries.

Thanks again for all the help guys.

You're in the winter season, the up side is rates are lower, the down side is not every place is open in more remote areas.

As far as where to eat, in Anchorage Mooses tooth for pizza and beer, Humpies down town for fish tacos, or Brew House or if you want a little up scale Orsos.

Girdwood Jack Sprat (I'm probably one of the few people that think the Double Musky is over rated) For Homer cafe spoons, Talkeetna, Talkeetna Roadhouse, Delta Junction, Buffalo drive in or the Cave. Pretty much do a google search in any area you'll be in and the good places will have good reviews.

Haven't stayed in any lodges or B&B's for years so can't comment.

And Anchorage, for example (and perhaps especially), is very proud of their motels and hotels. For example, rooms at Motel 6 (the safest bottom end chain option) is $160 plus an additional 12% for the mayor in July. January costs "only" half that (which is still double what they advertise in many places). In contrast, a 'better' chain, Hilton, will cost $230 plus 12% in January, $375 plus in July. Is that cool or what?

Governor Hammond said it best back in 1975; "Alaska is 15 minutes away by air from Anchorage".

The communists went nuts.

I have the same (maybe a little faster) in Fairbanks, and use an ACS DSL. Not bad at all for $79.00 a month considering that it is unlimited internet service. GCI may be faster, but it's limited. It means that before the month ends, you have already reached the limit if you download movies and things like that.

But I do have a GCI bare-bone cell service for my wife and I. It used to be ACS, but they sold out to GCI. All we have is unlimited text and voice nationwide, without a data plan. It costs around $15.00 a month per phone, plus taxes.

I'm on a sat dish ,for the net....DSL =lol Att for my cell, they gave us free texing as its a 50-50 chance your phone will even ring, so we TeX and tell who ever to call ...lol...but than I live IN ....Alaska

We made a quick trip out there, arrived very early on the 17th into Anchorage, picked up our car and proceeded to Kava's off of Airport Heights for breakfast, yum! Definitely recommend this to anyone that hasn't tried yet, I got the reindeer omelet, ended up having leftovers of it for snack and dinner it was so much food. We also stopped there just before we left, got the Loco Moco (minus the macaroni salad), also really good, similar to a dish my mom made when I was younger.

Stayed up in Wasilla at the Best Western on Lake Lucille, again, definitely recommended if you're staying in that area. Tammy that works there was great, helping us out with whatever we needed. Free breakfast was ridiculous, sausage, eggs, potatoes, pancakes/french toast, biscuits and gravy, cereal, bagels, coffee, juice...we left completely stuffed every morning. First night had a parking lot view, but we switched to a lake view after that. Saw lots of folks ice fishing and several folks spinning across the lake in their trucks.

Drove around the area a lot, out to Houston, up to Willow, just about up to Trapper Creek, check out the area, see a few properties. Also made a drive up to Hatcher Pass, back through Palmer. Wednesday we were planning to drive down to Soldotna, ran into some freezing rain about when you hit Chugach State Park on Seward Hwy. Kept going until you see the Kenai sign going through the mountains after Portage, it was snowing pretty decent, road was looking a little rougher than we wanted to deal with that day, so we decided to head back up towards Anchorage. Stopped by Portage Glacier area (mostly closed), but had a good time walking around a bit, driving where we could, went through the tunnel.

Made a little time to talk with one of the realtors I'd been dealing with up in Wasilla. Gave us some good tools to use, showed us some properties, changed my expectations a little, so it was a good meeting.

Oh we also saw a bunch of moose as we drove around, even caught a small bull across from Turner's Corner (ice cream machine was down, we were hoping for what was said to be the best ice cream).

All around had a really nice time, no problems other than having to go back to Dallas very early on Friday the 22nd, wife and I both wanted to stay and say the heck with Texas. But that will have to come another day, sooner rather than later hopefully.

We sure hope the heck with TX thing happens for us in 5 years. Know exactly how you feel.

Glad you had a great trip. Just remember this is a non winter in terms of temps and snow.

Yup, definitely kept that in mind the entire time...mild winter, mild winter, mild winter lol. It was kind of interesting, in Wasilla it might be 25 out, get over to Houston, down to 18, get up to Willow and now it's 0, all in such a seemingly short distance.

Plan so far is to head up a little later this year and find a spot to rent, continue the home search from there. Realtor is advising us to wait until September at least before buying, see if anything major goes down. Who knows, we may even wait through the winter to have a full year there and really figure out where we want to be and what we truly need/want.

Quote
Plan so far is to head up a little later this year and find a spot to rent, continue the home search from there. Realtor is advising us to wait until September at least before buying, see if anything major goes down. Who knows, we may even wait through the winter to have a full year there and really figure out where we want to be and what we truly need/want. [/quote]

Best advise so far

yup, house prices are slipping pretty fast.

"""Showed us some properties, changed my expectations a little, so it was a good meeting.""" What were those ? Small house / more bucks ? .…just wondering.... Wife watches house hunters ,some places outside u can get a monster home darn near new ...for next to nothing ….

Well, I was initially looking for more land, small house...while still being hooked up to city electricity and high speed internet. I'm finding that a little difficult right now, at least in my price range (I haven't gone above $300k as of yet).

Found several properties with land and house, but only setup for generator/solar, with no word on internet capabilities. Now that's not to say that they couldn't be setup with hardline power/internet, just something I'll have to look at a little closer I guess.

After talking with him, it may be a better option to find something with a little less land, a little closer to town, that fills all the other requirements, and then find a blank property (or properties) to use for fun.

Finding a nice smaller home on a large lot is very difficult. Having a slightly larger home if you can swing it isn't a bad thing given the length of winter. Factor in the cost of a vacation home plus smaller primary home when comparing to a larger primary home.

Like he said ,,a large room well lit will do wonders for ya when it nasty out side for a week! ,look for a hrv in what u buy to ...just sayin