Alaska {How to: On a Budget!}

{Settle in, this is a long one! Big thanks to Derek for a lot of these pictures, everything else is from my iPhone!}

If you follow my instagram you probably noticed that we were in Alaska for the better part of the last two weeks! WOOHOO! We had a fabulous trip, perhaps one of the best we've done together. Every part of the trip was perfect, and travelling with Derek is always fun because we compliment each other very well — I'm the OCD planner, and he's the flexible one. HA! In reality, I'm flexible too and we make travel decisions very democratically, but I like to have somewhat of a plan ahead of time.

The reason we went to Alaska was because it was Derek's 50th, and final, state to visit! He has now been to every state, plus DC and Puerto Rico. The goal was to do this before he turned 30 {don't tell him I told you he recently did that!}, but we decided we'd rather go to Alaska in the summer than cram in a short trip last winter just for the sake of getting there. That said, now we're eager to go back in the winter and ski!

We didn't really hold back on this trip — we did whatever we wanted to (for the most part). The only thing we skipped was an overnight/glacier kayaking trip. We REALLY wanted to, but it would have been over $600 each, and that just seemed a bit out of our price range. The trip, as a whole, was very affordable. We bought our tickets using Frontier miles (yes!), and didn't pay a single penny for lodging the entire time. Luckily, I have family in Anchorage who were incredibly accommodating and generous with their camping equipment, they even gave us a spare RV Battery. We stayed with them for one night on each end of the trip, camped most other nights, and stayed in a friend's cabin for two nights. Seeing as cheap hotel rooms are over $200 in the summer in Alaska, I'd say we made a smart choice!

We started in Anchorage — albiet briefly. We arrived around 9 pm, then were treated to pizza and s'mores around the fire — all the while being amazed that it wasn't getting dark! We finally went to bed around 12:30, with the sky still very light. Luckily, drawing the blinds let us get a good night of sleep.

The next day, we got our camping stuff together, headed to get our rental car, and ended up with the best deal in Alaska! My friend told me to check out caravan loans by Auto Finance Online, since I love camping so much. I guess I'll get round to it one day! I reserved a tiny car through Costco {the best deals I ever find!}, but we ended up getting a truck for the same price. The guys at Enterprise on East Airport Road in Anchorage are the bomb! They took care of us, for sure. The truck was awesome to have — it kept our dirty camping gear out of the cab, gave us a lot more room, and honestly we could have slept in the cab if we'd had to. It was fabulous.

We then drove from Anchorage to Valdez, keeping our eyes peeled for moose and bears! The entire drive, and really the entire trip, we were in awe of the mountains. Having lived in Colorado and Montana, we think we know mountains; however, Alaskan mountains are another story. THEY'RE HUGE! Everything is just so remote, and wide open. As we drove towards Valdez it seemed each corner brought bigger, grander mountains. We knew we had to go over a pass to reach the ocean, but honestly couldn't imagine where it might be. We were surrounded by mountains that were covered so deeply in snow that their true topography was a mystery.

We stopped at the Worthington Glacier, just before Valdez, and were pretty impressed! Little did we know, we'd later be seeing MUCH more impressive glaciers!

I have little to report from Valdez — it is a cute little town on the Prince William Sound, we enjoyed walking around the docks, but honestly didn't spend much time. We stayed in the campground in town, next to the ferry terminal, to get on our 7 am ferry across the sound. That night was a bit rough — light all night, sleeping in a tent? I voluntarily blindfolded myself to attempt darkness. It somewhat worked, and perhaps I was nervous of oversleeping my alarm, but it felt like I was up checking the clock every hour. It's hard to tell what time it is when it's light at 2 in the morning!

The ferry ride from Valdez to Whittier was beautiful — I'm glad we did it for some time in the Sound, passing icebergs, glaciers, and beautiful waterfalls cascading down lush green mountains into the water. We saw plenty of otters (the entire trip!), and an orca whale! I was glad we saw one whale on the trip — they're definitely my favorite animal to see in the wild.

I don't think cruises are generally my type of travel, but I can see the appeal of an Alaska cruise. I could spend all day going through the sound looking at the little islands, icebergs, animals, mountains, etc. It's unlike anything else I've seen, and was well worth the expensive ferry ride!

We arrived in Whittier, a town with some interesting history, and immediately headed through the tunnel and down to Seward. Everyone warned us about Seward — they said we would love it! We definitely did. I'm a sucker for the ocean, Derek prefers the mountains: Seward is the perfect combination. HUGE vertical faces come straight out of the water, up to snowy peaks. We spent three nights at the (free/tent-only) campground just below Exit Glacier, and were the only people there most of the time.

Our first full day in Seward was probably our favorite of the entire trip. We went to see Exit Glacier, which is spectacular, then hiked about 10 miles (total for the day) to the top of the glacier, overlooking the Harding Ice Field. I took a geography class my Junior year of college and realized I should have been a geography major for a variety of reasons. Most of those reasons were more about cultural and political geography, but I was surprised how fascinated I was by glaciers, and the Harding Ice Field in particular! As with the mountains going to Valdez, we could only imagine the topography that lay below the ice. It was truly spectacular, and well worth the hike.

If anyone is looking for information on the hike, here it is: Definitely not for the faint-of-heart. It wasn't grueling, but there is substancial vertical, and many obstacles. For us, the obstacle was mainly snow. More than half of the hike was on snow, which we certainly weren't expecting. Luckily it was warm, and our wet sneakers didn't get cold or slow us down. It was definitely fun, but much slower than normal hiking. Coming down, however, was super fast! It was very much a shoots & ladders situation, and we slid down what we could, and ran down the rest. It was fabulous!

Luckily, we didn't see any bears. That area is known for having frequent bear sightings, and our campground had actually had an issue the previous weekend. We were grateful for a bearless trip!

The rest of our time in Seward was fairly relaxed — we did another hike down South along the coast, then did a night of sea kayaking along the same route. We didn't eat out much in Seward, as we were camping and mostly cooking in camp, but if we go back there are many place that were recommended to us we would love to try! We did spend one (our only) drizzly afternoon reading in the Resurrection Coffee House, which is in an old church. The choir loft was a great place to read!

We left Seward with our sights set on Homer — on the other side of the Kenai peninsula. It's a bit of a drive, but fun to see the changing terrain. We drove through mountains and dense forests, with many rushing rivers, then into a more wind-blown coastal scene. It was a gorgeous drive. Our favorite stop along the way was in Soldotna, the biggest town on the route, for lunch. We stopped at Odie's Deli, which honestly might be the best sandwich/wrap place I've ever been. They bake all of their bread and sweets, have deliciously creative sandwiches, and it was likely the healthiest thing we ate all week. We loved it so much we stopped on the way back through three days later!

Everyone told us Homer was more of a place we'd enjoy staying, living, and hanging out — compared to Seward, which is just magnificently beautiful. I think I agree! We have some friends who kindly let us stay in their (rustic, no h20 no electricity) cabin while we were there. It was perfect! We saw plenty of moose wandering by, didn't have to worry about bears or mosquitos, and were able to relax a bit more than when camping. We loved it!

In Homer, we wandered around The Spit, which is basically where all of the touristy business happens. There are cute little shops, galleries, fishing charters, etc. I can't imagine I'd spend much time there if I actually LIVED in Homer, but it was fun to see. We tried our hand at fishing in the inlet on the spit, where apparently King Salmon come back to spawn. Our timing wasn't quite right, so we didn't have any luck (nor did anyone around us) there.

We didn't really have a plan for our second day in Homer, but woke up feeling like we should go halibut fishing. This was mostly Derek's feeling, not mine. We called a place with good prices, got on a boat an hour later, and went out to sea! We had a great time with the other people on the boat, crew and guests alike. After about an hour of heading out to "the spot" the waves started picking up, which was *not* awesome for my easily-nauseated self. Thirty more minutes of rough seas, then anchoring and bobbing like a toy duck for at least an hour, were definitely not my jam. Those fish enjoyed my breakfast many times. I didn't particularly enjoy that. Once we started heading back (after catching our limit of fish easily!), things got significantly better. We were going with the tide, the wind, and things had died down. I felt *way* better (whew!).

We were psyched to have met some great people and caught enough fish to pay for our day (20 lbs of halibut fillets, at a market price of $20-25/lb — we came home with at least $400 in fish! Woohoo! You'll probably be seeing some halibut recipes up here soon!

After having a lovely dinner, and coffee the next morning in the "other" part of Homer (less touristy, but still full of nice places), we headed back towards Anchorage with some more fish in mind: Salmon! We'd met some guys at our campground near Seward who had just come from the Russian River, where (they said) you couldn't help but catch Reds. They showed us a picture of the water and it was FULL of salmon — like 3 per cubic foot! They went so far as to loan us their fishing stuff, so we could give it a go on our way back to Anchorage.

We stopped at the oh-so-crowded Russian River with high hopes. Despite the fact that we didn't know what we were doing, we figured we probably couldn't help but catch our 3 salmon each. After probably 5 hours of trying, without waders or gear of any sort, we decided to call it a day. It was partially discouraging, but apparently that day was bad for everyone. Some guys in the parking lot told us they'd had fish basically jumping into their arms the day before, but hadn't caught anything the day we were there either. Bad timing, I guess! It was fun anyways — despite the insane amounts of mosquitoes.

Needing to have our rental car back in Anchorage by noon the next day, we headed in that direction and spent the night in Girdwood at *the worst* campground. I suppose that's an exaggeration — there were trees, it was quiet(ish), and it had a lovely covered picnic table; however, the "sites" were overgrown and untended to, so we slept on the only flat spot we could find (in the middle of the path). Then, there were the mosquitos. We really didn't see that many during our trip (thankfully), but Girdwood make up for lost time. Maybe it was my super-tiredness kicking in (we arrived at 1 am), but those bugs were NASTY! We set the tent up in record time, and took it down as quickly as possible the next morning to GET OUT OF THERE.

Girdwood is where Alyeska, the ski resort, is located. We went up to Hotel Alyeska for our final breakfast at the Pond Cafe. As we arrived in the parking lot, and pulled into a spot, we noticed some other tourists in a car driving and gawking — clearly having seen wildlife. I said "oh, maybe there's a bear!" and sure enough, a bear comes walking right up to our truck. Good thing we hadn't gotten out yet! It came over to my window to check me out, then around to the back of the truck (where our food and gear was), and hopped in! What do you do when there's a bear in the bed of your truck, and you're in the cab? We sat there for a minute thinking, then I turned the truck back on and backed up a few feet, then forward, then back, then forward. The bear seemed pretty unimpressed. Luckily, a hotel employee came out and chased him away (it was just a black bear, probably pretty used to people in the area). Whew! We always stored our stuff in the cab when were our of the truck, but if we were driving we kept it in the back — this bear didn't give us time to move it before trying to steal our lunch!

If you're ever in Girdwood, I highly recommend you do NOT go to the Pond Cafe. The food was nothing incredible, and the service was TERRIBLE. Like, really terrible. Go to the Bake Shop instead (I hear). Oh well! After a disappointing breakfast, we headed back to Anchorage to spend time with my family, and rest up!

We had only showered once in our 10-day excursion, so getting clean and doing a load of laundry was heavenly. We spent that afternoon shooting guns with the family (which was incredibly fun — we shot a HUGE cannon of a gun!), then had delicious burgers and the craziest onion rings I've ever had. They were more onion than bread, super greasy, and really delicious. Perhaps I'll try to recreate them here! After dinner we drove around Anchorage, seeing everything note-worthy and learning a lot about the town.

The next day our flight was at 10 pm, so we had a leisurely morning packing up, then a KILLER hike! I'm not sure I've ever hiked something that steep — it was intense. Anchorage seems like a great place to live, especially because they have these hikes so close to town! Bozeman is fairly similar, but it amazes me when other places have this same feature. On our 20-minute drive to our trailhead, we probably passed at least 10 other trailheads. I'm sure all of them would have been steep, too!

After a lovely home-cooked dinner that night, we headed to the airport for our redeye home! My sleep schedule is WAY out of wack from the flight, but hopefully I'll get back to normal soon.

Derek and I were both really impressed, and a bit enchanted, by Alaska. It's incredible, almost unbelievable, and I'll probably never look at mountains the same. I HIGHLY recommend visiting Alaska, and we had great luck with going in June! It seemed like tourist season wasn't quite in full swing, so we had no problems with crowds anywhere except the Russian River. Campgrounds were plentiful, and usually great (and often free!). Alaska is definitely not an inexpensive place to visit, but if you use miles for flights and camp the entire time, you can have a very affordable trip while still doing everything you want to.

I can't wait to go back!