Joseph & I traveled to Alaska from March 22nd to March 27th, 2017. This was definitely the most unique place we have traveled to together (although we haven’t gone out of the country much together, yet). We both really loved Alaska, even in March it was an amazing place to visit. We were looking for a place that was cheap to fly to and that had many adventurous things to do. We got to experience dog sledding, snowmobiling, ice fishing, and seeing the beautiful Aurora. We ended up doing all of these things in Fairbanks, so if you are debating between the two, I would recommend just going straight to Fairbanks.
Here is a summary of our original itinerary for our trip to Anchorage and Fairbanks:
Day 1
We arrived in the afternoon and decided to pick up our rental car upon arrival and go find a place to eat. We decided on International House of Hot Dogs which also happened to be near our hotel. Here’s the review I wrote on yelp, I gave the business 5 stars: “Best hot dog I’ve ever had. So, I’m really plain when it comes to hot dogs–I really enjoy my hot dog with just ketchup. My fiancé decided on this place as our first visit after our flight, and I wasn’t sure at first but agreed to go. We were greeted by Luis who was extremely friendly and very welcoming, it sure was a breath of fresh air to talk to him after 10 hours of traveling. I decided on the Mexican dog (with the chipotle on the side since I wasn’t sure about it) and my fiancé ordered a Chicano dog. It was absolutely delicious, I even liked the chipotle sauce. We also ordered the cilantro fries and they were very yummy. I’m really glad we decided to eat here. Thanks Luis! For your great hospitality.” I recommend stopping by International House of Hot Dogs during a visit to Anchorage.
We hung out at the hotel for the rest of the afternoon until dinner that night at Moose’s Tooth. I was really excited to try Moose’s Tooth since it’s one of the highest rated places to eat in the Anchorage area. I ended up just thinking it was okay. Well it was good, but it didn’t compare to the International House of Hot Dogs. We went out for dinner around 9pm or so, and I had never experienced being so cold. I very clearly remember how freezing it was to me that night. Something to note–I am from California so I’m not used to very cold weather, so it could just be that.
Day 2
We decided to change up our itinerary and went to Anchorage Museum in the morning on day 2. There were some cool displays and videos in the museum. We actually got to see Balto there. What was most interesting was learning about the different Native people. This museum was very small, we were only there for maybe 1 and a half to 2 hours.
We went to the Hilltop Ski area after lunch, which isn’t far from Anchorage–maybe 25 mins or so. We were able to get a good deal of $115 for two people which included a lesson for us both, the equipment rental, and a lift ticket for each of us. This was the first time we tried skiing, so we had a lesson on the bunny slope. I ended up absolutely hating it, but Joseph liked it. It was a cool experience, and now I can say I tried skiing for the first time in Alaska.
Day 3
For day 3 we drove the scenic Turngain arm. Before our trip I was really worried about driving in Alaska in March with the snow. We are from California and never drive in snow. Our rental car was a Jeep Compass, and we ended up being absolutely fine. There were some parts of the Turnagain Arm that had a very weird fog, but it wasn’t too bad. On the drive we stopped at Beluga Point (you can see it on google maps but you will also clearly see an area to pull off of the road for it). The view was very nice–it was cool to see the cracked ice slowly moving along, which we couldn’t tell was moving while we were driving. We drove to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center and arrived a few minutes before opening. While we were waiting we experienced seeing snow fall for the first time, it was also the first time we were in zero degree conditions. We were able to see some animals, but most were in hibernation mode. The wolves were very gorgeous and active. My eyelashes actually froze while walking around here, it was so cold. We would walk around for a short period of time, but would quickly go back to the car and blast the heater so that we could warm up again. You can drive around the park so that’s what we did, looking around from the heated car. The best part about visiting here was that were able to take some really gorgeous photos. I had brought a travel tripod and my Canon T3i and we took a lot of photos along a few stops in the park.
After that we drove to Girdwood and went to the Girdwood Picnic Club for lunch.
I enjoyed the pork enchiladas that I ordered there:
Then we drove to Glacier City Snowmobile Tours for our 1pm Real Deal Tour. This was what we were looking forward to as the main highlight of our visit to Alaska. We were going to go snowmobiling all the way to a glacier and go into an ice cave. We arrived and started suiting up for the tour. They had these large and very thick snow suits, and heavy duty boots. We fully suited up and were ready to go. We were getting ready to get into the van when we learned that someone from the previous tour had fallen into the ice at the glacier. The person ended up having to be helicopter rescued, so there was no way we were going to be able to go out that day. Everyone was very disappointed and upset. We all lined up for refunds, but also we were asking them about seeing if we could be rescheduled for the next day. But the company denied our requests since they were completely booked. There was one group there who said that the absolute main reason they had traveled was to do that snowmobiling excursion. We were all extremely disappointed, but also I can’t imagine how it was for that individual who fell into the ice. Thankfully that person was okay. We left and started contacting other places in the area–but we weren’t going to be able to schedule another tour in time since we were flying to Fairbanks the next day. Joseph ended up finding Rod’s Alaskan Guide Service in Fairbanks and that ended up being the best decision we made for the trip. The price for the snowmobile tour with Glacier City was $250 each for a 5.5 hour tour. The price for Rod’s was $400 each but it included a 2 hour snowmobile tour, ice fishing, and a place for aurora viewing. We were hesitant about the price at first, but looking back it was totally worth it. I will write more about it on Day 5 below.
Day 4
Since we had already gone to the Anchorage museum, we decided to go to the Anchorage 5th avenue mall and purchase some souvenirs. Polar Bear Gifts was right outside of the mall, and we purchased all of our souvenirs here and at the local Walmart. Walmart did have a really nice selection of cheap souvenirs. We stopped by Tommy’s Burger Stop for lunch, but the place was tiny and we waited quite a bit to get our food. It wasn’t super memorable. That evening we flew in a tiny plane to Fairbanks. We ate dinner at Fushimi Japanese, it was very good. Here was my Yelp review: “This place was really good. I ordered chicken teriyaki, and asked for vegetable tempura instead of the other rolls. They gave us free edamame and ice cream, that was really awesome. My fiancé and I were very surprised and happy about that. All of the food was delicious, happy we stopped here.” After that we went to the World Ice Art Championships at Ice Alaska, that was a great experience. We saw a lot of ice sculptures and took a ton of great pictures there. One regret was that we were freezing, definitely bring many handwarmers for that visit if its in the evening.
After, we went out to Cleary Summit in hopes of catching the Lights (Aurora Borealis). I did research on some places outside of Fairbanks that would be good viewing spots for the Lights and Cleary Summit seemed like a good one since it was just a parking lot dedicated to viewing not too far out of town. We checked an Aurora app to check for the viewing conditions for that night, and they weren’t great, but we still decided to go out in hopes that we would catch them. When we arrived there were a few cars, and as the night progressed more cars arrived. It was very cold just sitting and waiting in the car, but we used some handwarmers and just kept hoping we would see lights. We waited into the AM, didn’t see much besides a faint streak in the sky, and then decided to go back to our hotel. We only had 2 nights to try and catch the lights so we were trying our best to catch them.
Day 5
After a long night trying to catch the aurora, we sure slept in. For lunch, we went to Little Richard’s Family Diner, I had a burger and milkshake it was delicious. I wish I had written a detailed yelp review but sadly I didn’t, but I do remember loving it. We scheduled a 1.5 hour tour with Black Spruce Dog Sledding for $125 each. We met with our tour guide, and he gave us snow boots and pants to borrow for the ride. Then we went out to meet the dogs, and they were friendly. We had a good time just going around to pet them all. Our guide told us more about the whole process of dog sledding. We helped harness the dogs and then got ready for a 25-30 minute ride. The sled had a tag sled attached to it, so that one person could ride in the sled and the other could ride the tag sled. I sat in the sled first, and it was pretty bumpy which wasn’t exactly what I expected, but it was fun. I quickly got very cold with the rush of air, so I suggest having gloves on with handwarmers. Mine were off since I was taking video on my phone. I also tried the tag sled after the halfway mark and that was fun.
That evening we went to do our 2 hour snowmobiling tour with Rod’s Alaskan Guide Service. Our guide was super friendly and he got us suited up in heavy duty jackets and pants. Snowmobiling was a little hard for me at the beginning in terms of maneuvering, but by the end I felt comfortable. Joseph loved it, and he rode fast. We enjoyed it. Two hours was a good length of time. I saw a lot of tours with longer rides, but I’m glad we did a sunset ride with that length of time.
Right after snowmobiling we headed to the ice fishing cabin at the Chena Lakes Recreation area. Ice fishing was a ton of fun! We had small fishing rods, baited them with shrimp, and caught a ton of fish. The cabin was heated, and it was snug but there was only a group of 3 besides us so it was perfect. Our guide showed us how to do the ice fishing, and she also cooked the biggest of the fish we caught. From the frozen lake we had an absolutely amazing view of the aurora borealis. We were so happy to be able to see these amazing lights. Thanks again to the tripod we were able to take a lot of gorgeous photos.
Day 6
On our last day we drove to Santa Claus House, bought some souvenirs, and walked around some nearby ice sculptures. It was cute seeing all of the letters that children wrote to Santa Claus, and all of the Christmas items. We bought a few souvenirs here. After, we drove to the Alyeska pipeline visitor center. That was a quick stop, just walked over to it, snapped a photo, read a little bit on the process, and walked back to the car. For our last meal in town, we went to
Here is what our itinerary ended up being:
So that was our amazing trip. If I were to go again in March, I would do the following:
- Fly straight to Fairbanks
- Go to the Chena Lakes Recreation area for Aurora viewing (That’s where we did the ice fishing)
- Make sure to have a tripod and nice camera always readily available in rental car
- Go ice fishing & snowmobiling again
- And, go to all the delicious restaurants in Fairbanks again (Fushimi Japanese, Little Richard’s Family Diner, Pacos Tacos and Tamale Factory)
We would also love to visit Alaska in the summer.
Good luck on your Alaska trip!