Alaska
Super-sized wilderness
Welcome to Alaska
The insider's travel guide to AlaskaIf you thought everything about the USA was big, well, Alaska is just... bigger.
It's the country's largest state, home to both the country’s biggest national park, Wrangell-St Elias, and highest peak, Denali.
Everything here is on an epic scale and there's adventure everywhere you look. You can paddle across silent fjords with snowy peaks towering above you, watch huge grizzlies pluck glistening salmon from icy rivers, hear the howl of wolves from your cabin in the dark of night and gaze skywards at the shimmering fireworks of the Northern Lights.
There are few roads, so you'll need to hop aboard a light plane to enter the wilderness where musk oxen, grey wolves, bears and caribou roam wild and free. Alaska is a place to encounter nature in all its raw, ethereal beauty ‒ and perhaps to find yourself again as you do so.
The Alaska atlas
3 picks Places & Experiences You Won't Find Elsewhere-
Most cruises in Alaska explore the sub-Arctic Inside Passage. Few sail into the Arctic Circle, but the ones that do – such as Hurtigruten Expeditions, National Geographic Lindblad Expeditions and Seabourn – sail past Point Barrow. They may also stop at Herschel Island, which has Inuvialuit dwellings and a 19th century whaling station. Alasdair sailed this stretch in the opposite direction, from Canada’s North West Passage. He says, “I saw a herd of musk oxen on Herschel Island, and got tipped out of my dingy while going ashore for fuel at Barrow Point. “Alaska’s north coast is fairly dull. There are no mountains, glaciers or icebergs like in Greenland, and you can have days where the horizon is just grey. The water is quite shallow and not particularly well chartered, so big ships can ground there."
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Denali is America’s quintessential National Park. While most visitors experience the park via its main northern corridor, the Denali Park Road, the south side of the park sees little annual visitation and remains completely road-less and virtually unexplored. Accessing the park by bush plane from Talkeetna, Alaska, you’ll then spend three days and three nights camping and hiking Denali’s wild side from the comfort of a wilderness basecamp situated on the edge of the mighty Ruth Glacier, and only 17 miles from the summit of North America's highest peak.
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This route takes you the absolute best of Alaska's great outdoors; hiking, kayaking, climbing, cruising, and flying through its vast wilderness. If you’re looking to actively experience in the “real” Alaska and want to mix up lodges with remote camping, then this nine-day itinerary is your quintessential adventure.
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Alaskan Arctic
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Denali Express
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Prince William Sound, Chugach & Denali
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