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 [...]
When I worked at Zagat, I often heard about the Slow Food movement, which emphasizes seasonal, locally produced fare eaten leisurely in the company of others (as opposed to going to your local fast-food drive-through and wolfing it down alone in your car). And, I’m aware of the Slow Travel movement, which would certainly disapprove [...]
