5 Best Places to Visit in Alaska if you don’t want to rent a car

Jennie shares the best itineraries if you want to visit Alaska without renting a car as well as strategies for getting around Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau without a car.

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Music credits:  Largo Montebello, by Domenico Mannelli, CC.

Transcript

Jennie Flaming: 0:07

Do you want to know the best places to visit and Alaska where you won't need to rent a car. That's what we're talking about today welcome to the Alaska uncovered podcast with me your host, Jennie Flaming, I bring you accurate, helpful and entertaining information about Alaska travel, and life and Alaska. Today, I'm sharing the five best places to go and Alaska, where you don't need to rent a car, as well as navigating Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau, without a car. Good to hear and see be heard by all of you. Again, this is only my second completely solo episode. But I think this one makes a lot of sense to just share my thoughts and experience on. So today, we're talking about avoiding car rental on your trip to Alaska. And I want to just state that even though that is the topic of today's episode, renting a car is a fantastic way to see Alaska. But it's not the only way. And it's something I get a lot of questions about, and my article on ordinary adventures, that's about how to get how to visit Alaska without a car is a very popular article. So that tells me that people are looking for this information. So if that's you, and you're looking at how to do this trip without a car rental, then this episode is for you. So I'm going to start by sharing the five places that I think are the best places to go without a car and basically how to do that, as well as then navigating some of Alaska's major towns, if you don't have a car, just a few tips for that. So that's what we are talking about today. So before I jump into my top five, I wanted to just mention what the options are besides renting a car. So there are a few ways to get around Alaska. One of them is flying most people who visit Alaska fly there, but you can also fly between different places in Alaska or out to remote areas. And I am going to talk about a couple of remote areas in this episode, but for the most part, I'm not but just know that if you're going out to a remote fishing lodge, or you're going out to some of the most remote Alaska National Parks like cat, my gates, the Arctic, Koba Valley, those will definitely be without a car because you have to fly to get to those. But today we're talking about ones primarily where you have options in the future, I might do some episodes about more about those locations specifically. Okay, so if you're not flying another way to get around some parts of Alaska, not all but southeast and parts of south central Alaska is on the Alaska ferry. And if you're considering a trip on the ferry, I just want you to know you need to look very carefully at the schedule. Because a lot of times people are thinking, Oh, well go to different towns and get off for a few days. But a lot of towns only have ferry service once a week. So that doesn't always work out logistically. But you can definitely get around by ferry if you have enough time, especially in southeast Alaska, and then also some in south central and southwest Alaska. Another option is to take the Alaska railroad. So the Alaska railroad goes from Anchorage up to tel Kitana and Denali National Park and Fairbanks yawns that entire trip is about 12 hours. It also goes from Anchorage down to Seward and back and out to Whittier and back. So one important thing to know is that you can't go from Fairbanks sail all the way to Seward in one day. Those are separate trains. So if you were going to do that, you'd have to stay a night in Anchorage in between. But Alaska railroad is a great way to get around. And the Alaska railroad offers packages to help visitors sort of plan their whole trip and I just want to really plug those packages. It's a really good bargain. Alaska is of course an expensive destination but if you book your hotel holes with the train if you're doing a train trip, that's a really good way to do it. I'll talk more about that in a few minutes. Another option is that there is a bus called the park connection. And it is kind of like a charter bus but it has regular schedules. And it goes between Anchorage and Denali National Park also Talkeetna and it also goes down to Seward. So that's another option. And finally, some places that I'm going to recommend going are walkable. And you can walk around once you arrive. And so that's another option to the one thing I want to mention. If you are going to Alaska and not renting a car, if you are counting on using rideshare like Uber or Lyft don't count on that. I have had very good experiences with Uber and Lyft. in Anchorage, when there are big events, sometimes there's a long wait, there's often a bit longer of a wait, maybe then there would be in a big city like Seattle. Um, but you know, generally that works fairly well, everywhere else, it either doesn't exist, or it's extremely slow or inconsistent. So for example, in Fairbanks, there's rideshares. And I've taken rideshares. in Fairbanks many times. But sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes there just isn't any one available. But there are taxis so you can use that traditional taxi. And that's what you'd want to do in southeast Alaska and lots of other smaller towns. And I also just want to let you know that there are not any taxis or ride shares in the Denali area. There are a couple of shuttles that you can contact but not like what you might be used to using an app. So that's just a little bit about what your options are. So next, I am going to get into the five in my opinion, the five best places to go if you don't want to rent a car in Alaska. So number one Denali National Park, if you've been researching your Alaska trip, you probably already know that you can't drive in Denali anyway, you can in the first 15 miles of the park road. But to go deeper into the park, you can't drive a private car. So why have a super expensive rental car and then just leave it parked for however long you're there. So that makes Denali a fantastic carfree destination. The one thing you do have to be very careful about with Denali and not having a car is you need to make sure that you book a hotel that offers a shuttle service I into the park entrance area from the hotel and also back and forth to the train depot. That's really important because you're not going to be able to just show up in Denali and take an Uber or left to a hotel. That is that is not a thing there. So you have to plan ahead a little bit. But there are several hotels that offer that. And I would really encourage you if you're doing that if you're going to take the train to Denali from either Anchorage or Fairbanks, that you also book your hotel through the railroad as a package. It won't be more expensive than doing it on your own. And it'll make sure that you have transportation, which is super important. And they will handle your luggage for you, which is amazing. So Denali is a great way to do that. You can take the bus tour into the park, or if you want to be able to get on and off whenever you want, you can do the transit bus into the park. And that's a good option for hikers or people who just want to be able to do what they want during the day. And also the first 15 miles of the park road are also served by some additional shuttles. So there are quite a few different options and different buses that will take you around the entrance area to some of the trails at the entrance area. And then you can take the transit bus or the bus tour to go further into the park, which I would highly recommend. And if you book other types of tours in Denali, like fleet scene, something like that you'll be able to get a ride from your hotel. So you can book it through them and everything will be really smooth. So the only thing just to keep in mind about that if you're doing a train trip from Anchorage or Fairbanks to use a dolly is that you'll Want to stay somewhere in either Fairbanks or anchorage that is convenient both to the airport and to the train station. And ideally hotels have shuttles and I'd recommend a hotel for that as opposed to a vacation rental. It's just going to be easier to get around without a car for a short layover while you wait for your train. One other thing um, the train ride from Anchorage to Denali National Park is about eight hours and the train ride from Fairbanks to Denali is about four hours. So if you want a long train trip, Anchorage is a good choice. If you want a shorter train trip than Fairbanks is a good choice and without a car another thing you can do is go one way so you could fly into Anchorage and out of Fairbanks or the other way around. So number one Denali National Park. Alright, number two. So I mentioned I've got my top five here. Number two is Glacier Bay National Park. And nearly all visitors to Glacier Bay over 95% go on a cruise. And if you are looking for a non cruise option in Alaska, where you don't have to rent a car and where it will not be crowded. Glacier Bay is my top suggestion for you. You can go first you'll get to Juneau. So you'll fly Did you know and then you'll either fly or take the ferry to get to Davis, or you can do one way when the other. Again, the ferry doesn't go every day only goes twice a week in the last few years. So you'll have to pay attention to that they don't release the schedule till kind of late in the spring, which is also a little frustrating. But those are your options for getting there. And most likely you'll be flying on a small plane. Alaska Airlines does fly jet service. They're from mid June till mid August ish, something like that. So if you want to save a little bit of money and or use your Alaska Airlines miles are your companion fare. You can book it through there during the short time that they fly. It's a very short flight from Juneau to Gus Davis. And again, you want to pay attention if you're staying a night in Juneau which you probably will be, you want to stay close to the airport. So beyond at a hotel that has a shuttle so you can get back and forth to the airport and to the ferry terminal. If you're doing the ferry really important. Once you're in Glacier Bay, I'd recommend I'm staying at the Glacier Bay Lodge. It's really convenient to everything that's available in the park. If you are a camper, um, Glacier Bay has free camping. So that is a super bargain opportunity in Alaska. It's a wonderful campground, it does rain there a lot. There are a lot of bugs. I've camped there. But it's absolutely fantastic on the lodges right there. So you can eat meals there. You can pay them to take a shower, you can do laundry, you can't buy supplies really there. But you can. You can get things and then once you're in Glacier Bay, you can spend a few days there. There are hiking trails, and Bartlett Cove, which is where the lodge and Campground are. You've got to do the day trip into the park. On the boat, it's just fantastic. And then there's other things you can do you like beach combing, or just looking at the water or you can do flightseeing tours and fishing trips and things like that, too. So Glacier Bay is another one, you can't drive there anyway, so it's a great place to go. carfree so number two, Glacier Bay. Number three is Wrangell St. Elias National Park. Now, all five of my top five are not national parks. But the first three are so Wrangell St. Elias is another great location for people who want to get away from crowds and go somewhere not many people make it to you can drive to Wrangell St. Elias National Park, sort of in this podcast episode we're talking about not driving but just so you know, if you rent a car from a company that allows you to drive on the McCarthy Road, which is very few that's difficult to find. You can drive out there but it's better. It's kind of a it's people feel differently about this. Not everyone agrees with me. I don't think it's a very enjoyable drive. Personally, the part to get to Chennai is but um, that part on the McCarthy road is a little rough. Alright, so how do you get to Wrangell St. Elias national park without a car. You have a couple of options one One is you can fly there from Anchorage, if it is on a small plane, so you want to build in some extra time to deal with weather delays. That's also true for Glacier Bay. By the way. There's also a shuttle service that does like a van shuttle. That will take you out to McCarthy from Anchorage. So once again, even if you did have a car, you can't take it into the park. When you get to the end of the road near McCarthy, there is a footbridge that you walk across. And that's how you get into the town. And then, um, vacation rentals or hotels will provide shuttles back and forth to the bridge. So yeah, you can either get there with a van shuttle or you can get there with a small plane. Once you get out there. It's just a wonderful place to explore. There's lots of hiking opportunities, there are wonderful. Two are hiking, guided hiking tours, either multi day tours or just half day or full day tours out onto the glacier. You can also do kayaking trips. In Kennecott lake which is wonderful. You can also check out the Kennecott mine, which is a it's a park service site, it's part of the park, but it's also a really interesting place to learn about and the Kennecott area is it's about five miles from McCarthy. And there are shuttles that go back and forth. Again, no cell service, no taxis, nothing like that. But you can definitely get rides around from wherever you're staying. And Kennecott and McCarthy both have fun, quirky places to eat and places to stay. And they're just kind of fun places to hang out with a good vibe. So if you'd like to get off the beaten track, you will like Wrangell St. Elias National Park. So that is number three. Number four for my top five places to visit. And Alaska without a car is the town of Seward. And Seward you can get to you either on the park connection bus or on the Alaska railroad. And you can stay if you are going without a car, you want to make sure that you either stay in town so that you can walk to everything in Seward, or at a hotel or lodge that offers a shuttle back and forth to town. Because again, it's a walkable town if you're in the town, but if you're staying somewhere five miles from town, you don't want to do that without a car unless you are going to be getting rides from where you're staying. Once again, you can book a package through the Alaska Railroad, which is a good option to make sure you have a place to stay that you can get back and forth from once you're in Seward, you can do a day trip cruise into Kenai Fjords National Park, highly recommend that there are lots of other tours in Seward, it's an excellent place for for a fishing charter you to go out to exit glacier and the hiking trails there. There is a shuttle company that will give you rides out there. You can also take a tour out there. There's Seward also has flightseeing, and lots of other tours. And it's also a really fun town to just walk around. There's shops and restaurants. There's a long trail along the waterfront that's great for walking. It's just a really fun little town to visit. All right, number five is an Inside Passage cruise. So this might seem like kind of an obvious answer. But if you're talking about best ways to go to Alaska without renting a car, all five of these are fantastic. A cruise is best for the person who wants to go to a lot of different places in one trip. Because doing that otherwise is going to be really challenging because you're going to be flying or whatever between different places all the time. So if you're like I want to see, you know, the whole coast of Alaska or I want to go to all these different places, then a cruise is probably the best option for you. It doesn't matter too much as far as whether or not you're renting a car. What type of cruise itinerary you do. You can do a round trip Seattle cruise, you can do a round trip Vancouver cruise, you can do a one way cruise from Vancouver to either Seward or Whittier or the other way around. If you do a one way cruise, you want to book your transfer in Alaska through the cruise line. Just keep it simple. Make sure they get your luggage and hotel and get you either by motorcoach or train to the ship or from the ship to the airport. There aren't There are really other ways to do I mean, there are other independent companies that aren't part of the cruise line that offer that same service. But again, you know, taking a taxi will be prohibitively expensive, and there's no guarantee that you'll be able to find one. So make sure you make a plan for that if you want to keep it really easy and not deal with that and then do a round trip cruise out of either Seattle or Vancouver, which are both great cities to navigate without cars. Easy to do. Alright, so that's my top five, so just to revisit them again. Five best places to go and Alaska without a car without renting a car. Denali National Park is number one. Number two, Glacier Bay National Park number three Wrangell St. Elias National Park, number four, Seward. And number five, and Inside Passage crews. We're going to take a short break. And when we come back, I'm going to give you a few tips about navigating some of Alaska's bigger cities without renting a car. We'll be right back.

Unknown: 21:09

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Jennie Flaming: 21:55

And we're back so to wrap up this episode. Today I'm just going to share a few tips for getting around Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau, with those are the three largest cities in Alaska without renting a car. And those are all cities that you would go to you you would go to one of them and all of my top five. So like for Denali, you would start in Anchorage or Fairbanks for Glacier Bay, you would start in Juneau for Wrangell St. Elias National Park, you would start in Anchorage for Seward, you would start in Anchorage and for a cruise, you would maybe start or end in Anchorage, or maybe in Seattle or Vancouver, Seattle and Vancouver are easy to navigate without a car, but the others not so much. So let's start with Anchorage, Alaska is biggest city, it's probably the most like like a city in the lower 48. As far as non car options for getting around, you can do ride shares, they do sometimes get a bit backed up, but for the most part, you can find one, especially if there's not a big event going on. Like the start of the Iditarod. I have tried to get an Uber before the Iditarod start and that didn't work. Um, so in the future, I will make other plans for that. Anyway, but yes, in general, you can do that there's also a city bus, it's slower and doesn't have as like robust of a schedule as as cities in the lower 48 But it does exist. Um, my main tip for Anchorage, if you're going to be in Anchorage and not rent a car is to stay downtown. Because you can walk to things downtown, you can walk to restaurants and shops. And I would also recommend staying in a hotel, not a vacation rental. And make sure and it's helpful to get one that offers a shuttle service either to the airport and or the train depot. If you're staying downtown. You can do a rideshare or a taxi also. But downtown will sort of minimize that if you stay in other neighborhoods or even Midtown. It's going to be a little more expensive and harder to get around. Not impossible, but especially if you're just staying one night in Anchorage I would either stay downtown or near the airport is another good spot because then you're at least close to the airport. So that's Anchorage. Number two Fairbanks so Fairbanks is the second largest city in Alaska. And it is harder to get around without a car than Anchorage, but it's still doable. So again, it's gonna really matter where you stay. So if you stay in downtown Fairbanks or at Pikes waterfront Lodge which is really close to the airport, and you find something that has shoes shuttles to the airport and the train depot, then you'll be set as long as you're not leaving town. Right? So Fairbanks is pretty spread out. So if you want to go out of town anywhere, you're really going to need a car or you're going to need to take a tour. You can also, I think I mentioned I've had mixed success with getting a ride shares in Fairbanks, sometimes it works great. Sometimes there's no cars available, especially at the airport, I would really recommend not trying to do a ride share. If you come out of the airport and go to the left, that's where the taxi stand is. And you could usually get a ride right away. But also, if you stay somewhere that offers rides, that's a great way to do it. And finally, navigating Juneau. So if you are going to Juneau on a cruise ship, then you can, you can just walk everywhere, take a tour, somewhere if you want to leave the downtown area, like out to the Mendenhall Glacier or whale watching or something like that. Um, but if you're traveling to Juneau on your own, and you're not renting a car, and I will tell you that this is how I normally do it. I don't normally rent a car in Juneau unless I need to drive out the road for some reason. So if I don't do that, then I recommend staying downtown. And the reason I recommend staying downtown in Juneau is that you can walk to shops, restaurants, you can easily get to any tours. It's very busy in downtown Juneau during the day, but at night, it's fairly quiet once the cruise ships sail off. If you stay, if you're just staying one night, and you know, you can also stay by the airport, in a hotel with an airport shuttle, that or a ferry shuttle, whichever you need. That also works fine. But if you want to go to town, it's easiest to take a taxi downtown, stay there, take a taxi back to the airport when you're ready to go. One other thing I want to just mention about Juno because I've had so many questions about this during the 2023 season. Getting to Mendenhall Glacier, without a car and without being on a tour is pretty challenging. So it's not impossible, but you need to walk quite far the city bus goes to a mile from the glacier Visitor Center. So if you're okay with a two mile round trip block to get out there, then the city buses Great. Otherwise, you definitely want to either take a tour or have a car, again, ride shares. I've never successfully been able to take a ride share in Juneau, and I've spent a lot of time there. I have heard of a couple people now and then who have been able to but for the most part, it's taxis. And you won't at Mendenhall Glacier, you don't have service, so most people won't have much service. So it's difficult then to call a taxi to get back. So you just need to make a plan for that. But those are my tips for navigating those towns. And I hope if you are considering a trip to Alaska, and you don't want to rent a car, that this episode has encouraged you that it's totally doable, and in some cases even preferable to having a car depending on where you're going and what you want from your trip. So thank you for joining me for this episode of Alaska uncovered. If you haven't already, I want to encourage you to get on my email list so you can get my free Alaska travel tips in your inbox every Thursday. The link to sign up is in the show notes. And we will be back with more interview episodes. Good guests starting next week. Well you have a great lineup for the next few weeks. Thank you for joining me and bye for now.