Denali National Park, Alaska

Hello, I’m back from the great land of Alaska. (Alaska or Alyeska means ‘the great land’ in Yupik.) If you read my previous post, you’d know how hectic it was to plan a summer trip to Alaska only 2 weeks beforehand. But in the end, everything went all very well, except that we didn’t get to take a flightseeing tour with our B&B host. But that was nothing compared to the richness of experiences we had during the 2-week vacation. Alaska is now simply ranked among my most memorable trips so far.

In this travelogue “Everything Under the Alaskan Sun“, I’ll take you to Denali, Fairbanks, Talkeetna, Whittier, Girdwood, Seward and, of course, Anchorage. So come along and join the ride!

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Chapter 1

After one stopover and 10+ hours later, we finally arrived Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport at midnight. The time difference between Alaska and the East Coast is 4 hours, so it was basically 4 A.M. for me, and I was dying to go to bed. Outside was raining and cold. After half an hour of waiting, we boarded the shuttle bus to Embassy Suites. The hotel is ranked #1 in Anchorage on TripAdvisor. The room is nice and spacious with a large living room and working space. The breakfast was also very good.

Alaska – America’s Last Frontier

Spur of the moment

My upcoming vacation comes sooner than expected. In fact, it was a sudden, spontaneous decision. A ‘spur-of-the-moment’ kind of trip. Since it was quite urgent, we didn’t want to go abroad. Somehow our ‘domestic’ destination has turned out to be one of the most exotic and remote destinations in the world! Right here in the land of the US of A.

It is a land of contrasts. It is America’s largest state in terms of land and wealthiest in terms of cash reserves, yet was bought from Russia a century ago for only a penny. (Well, not literally ‘a penny’, but still.) Its median household income is ranked behind only industrialized Maryland, New Jersey and Connecticut. Yet it is still mostly untamed, and some Native Alaskans in remote areas still follow subsistence way of life like their forefathers. The only place in the world where residents get paid from the government; not the other way round. The state does not tax its residents and even pay them annual ‘dividends’ out of its $40 billion state fund. The state capital, Juneau, is the only capital city in the world that is not accessible by land. You have to go there by plane or cruise. Welcome to Alaska.

The land of glaciers and fjords