I discovered my love of totem poles in Ketchikan, Alaska, the third stop on my Coral Princess cruise through Alaska. I wasn’t expecting to see any more anywhere else, unless I went to NYC’s Museum of Natural History. But then we disembarked from the ship in Vancouver and I took a tour, in which the [...]

Based on my post about the many totem poles of Ketchikan, Alaska, I may have given the impression that totem poles are the only thing the town has to offer. While it is the Totem Pole Capital of the World, it's actually a charming place in its own right. I enjoyed walking around picturesque Creek [...]

Ketchikan, Alaska, was the third and final port on my Coral Princess cruise. On Thursday morning, I left the ship and immediately joined a tour of the Alaska Rainforest Sanctuary, where I walked through dripping greenery for about an hour hoping to see some wildlife. Our guide was knowledgeable about the plentiful plantlife and at [...]

Hey, it's not even midnight yet! It's 11:40pm here in Alaska, and it's pitch dark out one day after Summer Solstice. The Coral Princess is located somewhere between Skagway and Juneau (we left Skagway around 8pm and will arrive in Juneau tomorrow morning at 6am). The photo above was taken yesterday at 11:40pm, when we [...]

With blues skies and calm waters, today’s scenic cruising of Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska, on the Coral Princess was spectacular. A park ranger joined us onboard and, in her hypnotically soothing voice, she narrated the highlights of this constantly changing landscape through the PA system.That’s the Margerie Glacier pictured above, and we got to [...]

Only 50% of climbers successfully reach the top of Mt. McKinley, which is North America’s highest point at 20,320 feet tall. It turns out that just seeing Mt. McKinley’s summit is an accomplishment, because it’s usually shrouded in clouds. Well, its peak wasn’t completely revealed tonight from my vantage at the McKinley Princess Hotel, but [...]

My second morning in Alaska was hectic and found me frantically packing up my room at the Princess Fairbanks Hotel in time to catch the 8am train to Denali, where we would be staying at the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge located just outside Denali National Park. As soon as I boarded the glass-domed train and [...]

After the Riverboat Discovery tour, we headed to the El Dorado Gold Mine in Fairbanks, Alaska, to try to strike it rich at gold panning. I’ve wanted to go gold panning since the third grade — after I learned about the great Gold Rush I heard that in some parts of the West you can [...]

The Riverboat Discovery tour in Fairbanks was the perfect “first” excursion to do in Alaska. It gives you a taste of everything Alaskan and leaves you wanting more. In just four hours, you’ve seen a bush plane take off and land, learned the difference between caribou and reindeer and witnessed an endearing display of Alaskan-style [...]

Arriving in Fairbanks, Alaska, was one of the strangest arrivals I’ve ever experienced. There was nothing wrong with the landing – it was a smooth (if cramped) flight on Frontier from Denver. But when I arrived at 9:37pm on time to the minute (OK, that was also a little strange), it was just so incredibly [...]