In late June and early July, we drove around Alaska for 11 days, using Anchorage as our pivot point. Our itinerary was two nights in Anchorage, three nights in Healy (two days in Denali National Park), one night in Anchorage, three nights in Homer, one night in Anchorage (arriving on June 23, before flying back on July 3).
Anyone familiar with Alaskan distances knows that we must have spent about 24 hours in our rental car; in addition, we spent 14 hours on a shuttle bus getting into and out of Denali on two different days. Fortunately, we had three drivers for our long commutes to/from Anchorage. The Subaru from Avis was supposed to be an upgrade, but it was actually a bit cramped even though we only had one person over six feet. Luckily, we were able to get everything into the small luggage hold area since each of us had only one small suitcase and one backpack.
There was lots of looking, seeing, oo-ing and ah-ing. Next time(?!), however, I will make sure there's more tromping about as we did last year in Alberta's Canadian Rockies. Nevertheless, in our 11 days, we had so much good luck and beautiful weather, we even fantasized about living there (of course, we have no idea what it's like to spend half the year in darkness). Our B&B hostess in Homer explained that either first-timers love Alaska, or they hate it. As long as there are curtains in the bedrooms, I discovered I could fall asleep in the perpetual daylight of an Alaskan summer (22 hours).
