Summer is in full swing around Alaska, and our team is gearing up for another weekend of outdoor-themed fun as we motor north to the village of Talkeetna. We’re pretty confident about our Alaska RV packing checklist, thanks in part to the smart people at Great Alaskan Holidays who allowed us their expertise and even some gear during our first trip two years ago. But we’ve also learned a fair bit about what items truly do make a difference when taking an Alaska RV trip since often, we’re far away from stores (or our own garage) if we forget something.
Here are our top 5:
- Bike rack and bikes. While it is fabulous to have a “cabin on wheels” and one engine with which to get us here, there, and everywhere, once we park and hook up, we don’t want to undo everything to run over to a local park or restaurant. The
Making the choice to see Alaska by RV means your family probably likes an independent style of travel. Miles of open road and scenic overnight destinations lead to myriad options for activities reflecting Alaska’s spirit of adventure. From flightseeing to fishing, hiking to wildlife cruising, the Last Frontier provides families traveling with children plenty of options for every budget. But where does one start?
The biggest mistake first-time Alaska visitors often make is to cram too many activities into one short period of time. The 49th state is too large and too remote to try and explore the entire sweeping range of land in one or two weeks, and visitors who try often leave exhausted and frustrated. A better choice is to pick interests that align with the entire family. Sit down together well before your trip and note the areas of importance: Fishing? Hiking? Bears and moose? Glaciers? Relaxation?
An advantage of RV
What do you get when you mix a bunch of kids, a wide-open campground, and a little bit of dirt?
F.U.N. Especially when it’s camping.
Does your family go camping, whether in a tent, RV, or public use cabin?<—-cabins count in Alaska, since most cabins are in pretty remote places and are very similar to camping.
Ours took a shakedown trip to Eagle River Campground last weekend so we could get to know our new RV from Great Alaskan Holidays. It’s a big rig with lots of buttons, doors, and instructions, and we needed to figure out some of that important stuff in “real camping time.” We also just wanted to get out of town for a while (Do your parents ever say that? Mine did, and usually it meant we’d go camping.).
Eagle River Campground is one of those places we drive by often but never stay, mostly because it’s only 15 minutes from Anchorage and near
Were you raised to spend summer nights in a canvas tent, cooking meals over a campfire and playing until all hours among the leafy trees and rocky streams? I was, and so were many of my friends. My parents would pack the VW Bus with sleeping bags, coolers, boots, extra clothes, and that smelly canvas tent and away we’d go, sometimes to a real campground but more often to some remote place at the end of a logging road in Washington or Oregon.
What do I remember? Oh my, the smell of bacon in my dad’s old cast iron frying pan, of toast stuck atop a forked stick and held over the fire. The sound of loons on a quiet mountain lake, and squirrels chattering in the tops of Douglas fir trees. And my parents. I remember how relaxed they were in the woods, my father standing near the fire, a can of
You are experiencing the vacation of a lifetime in Alaska. Your camp site is near a stream deep in the thick, evergreen forest of the Kenai Peninsula. After a wonderful day outdoors, evening has arrived and you are ready to relax indoors.
There may be only two of you or six, but you are so grateful you rented a motorhome with slide out rooms. They make being inside almost as much fun as being outside. You watch a movie on your TV, prepare a delicious meal, play board games at the dinette, and move about the motorhome in a grand gallery of living not available in non-slide models.
The best part of your decision to rent a motorhome with slides is they are easy to operate. With the push of a button they glide effortlessly in and out, and are equipped with electric key locks for child safety. When the slides are retracted, the interior of your motorhome offers the same amount of space as models without slides.
If you are still deciding which motorhome floorplan you would like for your vacation of a lifetime, check out our list of current Floorplans. Be sure to view the photo gallery and videos for each [...]
