Cruises

• One of the most popular ways to see Alaska is via cruise. While most cruises only give you a small slice of Alaska's natural beauty, a cruise offers you unparalleled access to the glaciers, whale watching and snow capped mountains of Glacier Bay National Park and other areas of the Inside Passage. Many major cruise lines (like Holland America) and smaller cruise ships (like Sikumi) offer multiple-night cruises. Itineraries vary by company but most cruises feature time in Glacier Bay National Park, plus visits to other gorgeous areas of Alaska's Inside Passage such as Misty Fjords National Monument, Prince William Sound and Tracy Arm Fjord.
  
  

Cities

• Many cities in the continental U.S. offer direct flights to Alaska's largest city, Anchorage, and its capital, Juneau. Connecting flights from Anchorage will take you to Alaska's next most popular city, Fairbanks. It's also possible to access Fairbanks via Alaska Route 3. However, if you wish to reach Juneau from Anchorage, you will need to take a flight. No roads connect the two cities. Each of Alaska's three main cities has its own set of attractions. Anchorage is home to a few museums such as the Alaska Native Heritage Center; Fairbanks is best known for its Northern Lights viewing excursions; and Juneau is home to the state's capitol building.
  
  

Accessible National Parks

• Three of Alaska's national parks are accessible by road. Glaciers and fjords of Kenai Fjords are located 130 miles south of Anchorage. Seward, the closest town to Kenai Fjords, has many lodging options and day-trip boat excursions through the fjords. Denali, famous for America's tallest mountain, 20,320-foot Mount McKinley, is 240 miles north of Anchorage. Finally, 260 miles east of Anchorage is the nation's largest park, Wrangell-St. Elias.
  
  Note that Alaska's winters are harsh and many parks do not include many maintained roads. For Wrangell-St. Elias, call 907-822-5234; for Kenai Fjords, call 907-224-3175; and for Denali, call 907-683-2294.
  
  

Remote National Parks

• Kobuk Valley, Gates of the Arctic, Lake Clark and Katmai National Parks are beautiful but require determination to visit because no road leads to any of these four parks. To see the grizzly bears of Katmai, you need to take a jet from Anchorage to King Salmon, then a float-plane into the park. Alaska's northernmost parks, Gates of the Arctic and Kobuk Valley, are accessed by a combination of commercial and chartered flights. Lake Clark is reached by a chartered plane or a commercial flight that gets you within 30 miles of the park.
  
  

Seasons

• Alaska's seasons vary dramatically, both in terms of temperature and average daylight. During the winter months, Alaska is frigid, with temperatures usually below freezing and often below zero. Summers are much more pleasant, with temperatures in the mid-60s in Anchorage and Juneau. Seasonal daylight variations depend on how far north you travel. Cities such as Fairbanks have nearly perpetual darkness in the winter and midnight sun in the summer. In Barrow, Alaska's northernmost city, darkness lasts from late November to late January and it remains light constantly from May to August.