What to do in Alaska for Two weeks
So, if you’ve been following our blog, we talked about Alaska a fair bit because we decided to go there for our honeymoon after we got married. For those of you who are planning to get married, deciding where to go on honeymoon can be a sore subject, much more planning the itinerary once you have finally whittled through the destination(s). We wanted to do something a bit unique for our honeymoon so we ended up in Alaska, which we discussed in more detail as part of our planning. Now that we are back from our trip, we want to share an Alaska Itinerary (What To Do in Alaska for Two Weeks) in case you want to recreate our trip.
If you don’t want to recreate the same trip as ours, hopefully this gives you a fair idea of you can do in this huge state (it is the biggest state in the United States). Here are also some links to help you get started or get some inspiration from:
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For the record, if we mentioned hotels or activities here, we did not get compensated nor did we get any sponsored travels from them. We paid for this trip entirely out of pocket using cash, points or miles. Our blog is still a bit too small to get compensated by these bigger companies, but here’s to dreaming big!
We also published a more detailed book, which you purchase on Amazon (available on Kindle formats only) for $0.99!
So, we have to get there and back from Jacksonville, Florida.
We travel hacked our way to Alaska (Anchorage, to be more precise) using AA miles:
Ruby: 15,000 AA points on Economy Saver + $5.60
Peter: 30,000 AA points on Business Saver + $5.60
This is a total of 45,000 AA points one-way from Jacksonville, FL (JAX) to Anchorage, AK (ANC)
On the way back, we used Delta from Vancouver, BC (YVR) to Jacksonville, FL (JAX)
10,000 Delta Skymiles + $50 Delta Statement credit + $200 cash (for two)
The first part of our Alaska tour was the land part, where we rented a car and we’re going to drive around various places. We rented the car using Costco Travel and we got ended up with an intermediate car through Enterprise.
It was a Hyundai Sonata, and it cost us $206.15 for 6 days for 2 drivers, which we paid for in cash, and declined the insurance. This was the cheapest we could get, even after we put the rental details on Autoslash. This comes up as an average of $35 per day. Not so bad. 2021 Update: I believe there is a shortage of car rentals in Alaska which is driving the rental car prices up. Book early and keep checking for deals whenever you can to avoid paying top dollar for the rental!
We decided to go on a week-long Alaska cruise using Holland America because their ships are smaller, so we can disembark faster. Normally if we do cruise, we tend to go with Royal Caribbean – they’re more fun, but Holland America isn’t bad.
Since it was our honeymoon, we went all out and splurged on a balcony. This ended up costing us $1,697.69 per person, so a total of $3,403.63 for two which includes gratuities, dock fees and taxes, 2 shore excursions to Mendelhall Glacier, and a small jade bear as a souvenir. Cruising also means that we get fed for the week. Not much travel hacking savings there because we don’t know how to ‘hack’ cruises yet.
The itinerary below will identify the hotels and the activities we did per day. We’ll give more details on other posts based on our experiences in the hotel and/or maybe a review of the activities too.
Day 0 – 1: Anchorage, Alaska
Saturday night May 20th, 2017 to Sunday, May 21, 2017
Technically I arrived at midnight on the 21st of May, and was on a plane the whole of the 20th of May (starting at 10AM Florida time and landing at midnight in Anchorage, which was a lot of flying). You can read more about my flight from Jacksonville, FL to Anchorage on my Tales from the Economy Class cabin.
Paid $161.26 for two nights. Free parking and free continental breakfast. It’s less than 10 minutes from the airport and an easy drive away. It’s also got a microwave, and a fridge – perfect if you want to self-cater.
Peter was set to arrive around 6pm that night, so I went around the following places:
Monday, May 22, 2017
We decided to do one more trip near Anchorage before we headed out on our road trip:
We stopped by the following attractions on our drive from Anchorage to Denali:
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
Woke up early and did the following:
Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Dining:
Day 5: Talkeetna/ Anchorage
Thursday, May 25, 2017
Activities:
Dining:
Friday, May 26, 2017
*affiliate links below*
Activities:
Dining:
Saturday, May 27, 2017
Accommodation: Best Western Plus Edgewater Hotel
Activities:
Dining:
Sunday, May 28, 2017
Accommodation: Verandah on Holland America
Activities:
Dining:
Monday, May 29, 2017
Activities:
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Activities:
Dining: Included with the cruise
Wednesday, May 31, 2017
Dining was all done in the cruise ship. Breakfast, lunch & dinner.
Thursday, June 1, 2017
Wildlife:
Food was all from the ship.
**Juneau was a nice hidden gem for us and we can’t wait to get back. Will probably fly here next time then take the ferry to another town if we’re done exploring.
Story: A passenger (or two) didn’t get back to the cruise ship on time! The cruise was delayed for nearly an hour (not that it matters, we were looking at the whale by the docks), because some guests (a few of them) didn’t go back in time!
Day 13: Ketchikan, Alaska
Friday, June 2, 2017
**We had plans to go to Totem Bight Historical Park but because the weather was crap in the morning (raining a lot), we had to make alternate plans.
Food was also eaten at the ship so we didn’t have to pay for anything.
Saturday, June 3, 2017
Sunday, June 4, 2017
After 7 days of cruising, finally got signal. It just so happened that our flight was moved to the next day! So what are we to do? We gotta make decisions on the spot… all of this planning happened at Canada Place (the cruise ship terminal).
10,000 SPG points a night, but it was a great hotel! We also had lounge access because of our SPG Business card.
Monday, June 5,2017
Worked from the hotel. No other choice since our flight was in the early evening.
Food:
And that was our honeymoon trip itinerary in Alaska and Vancouver. It’s a bit of a long post, but if you have any other questions about our trip, leave a comment below. If you have any recommendations as well on what else to do, feel free to leave a comment as well.
We will discuss the finances/budget in a separate post and how much we spent for this trip. Spoiler alert: It was actually a bit more expensive than what I was expecting, but it was worth it just seeing the Last Frontier.
Looking for more travel inspiration? Check out some of our other posts below:
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I enjoyed reading this! It brought back great memories of the Alaskan cruises I have been on!
My boyfriend works up in Dutch (probs not where you would ever wanna go.....)but he says the bear sanctuary is the coolest. Did you see any of the wild Mustangs?
Only wild horses we saw were in Cumberland Island in Georgia.
We did go to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center one morning on our way to Whittier and that's definitely worth a stop. We went in a few minutes after they just opened and we were lucky enough to see them feed the bears.
If your bf is working in Dutch Harbour, then he's in the Aleutian Islands. We don't say no to traveling to any particular place, as long as there's something to do and there's no conflict or restriction stopping us from going :)
So many beautiful spots to visit. Thanks for all of the ideas. I'm going to have to add them to a Tripidee trip so I can remember them.
Glad to have helped with your trip planning :)
That sounds like fun! I like that you managed to get a lot of wandering around and hiking in before the cruise dates. I’d love to see even some of that wildlife. The yurt looks like an interesting night too.
That's what they suggested in the presentations we've been in - do the land part first so when you're really tired you get to relax on the cruise.