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Lucky Tom · 01-10-2017, 11:54 AM

Come first week of May we are leaving from Alabama with final destination Denali National Park and various places in Alaska. I have looked at the suggested routes that GPS devices show. We are penciling in two months for this trip. (round trip Tuscaloosa, AL - Anchorage, AL - Tuscaloosa, AL)
We travel using a new Garmin and a new Tom Tom.

Some friends here did it in 2016, about the same time of year as our plans. Start date first week of May.

So, please give me some feedback.

pmclemore · 01-10-2017, 12:26 PM

We made the trip in 2006 (from VA) and had a wonderful time. 13,300 miles in 66 days. I think your budgeted time is sufficient to enjoy the journey without beating yourselves up.

I think you will want to carry a small generator; the provincial parks in CA are beautiful but mostly dry camping. You will enjoy your stay more if you can easily keep your batteries up. We followed the Alaska Highway up and then the Cassiar Highway back. I highly recommend this.

Get the current copy of the Milepost. Lots of info, but you will learn how to sift through it. Also I found that the Church book, " Guide to Camping in Alaska" (or a similar name) to be very useful.

We carried our kayaks with us and thoroughly enjoyed them. In Denali, try to camp in the Teklanika (sp) campground, which is about 30 miles into the park.

You are going earlier than we went; we left on July 15th. You may find the insects to be more of an issue than we did. Our only struggle with them was a Liard Hot Springs. While you must go there, I think, consider camping just short of there at Muncho Lake. I think that might be our favorite camping experience ever.

We also came back by way of Dawson City, then down to Whitehorse; well worth the diversion - Dawson and Skagway (which we hit on the way up) are big gold rush venues. Get a copy of poems by Robert Service to get in the mood. Also, Pierre Berton wrote a very good book about those days.

Be prepared to have your rig dinged up. A good set of flaps may help. I've seen some folks wrap the fronts of their rigs.

I'm ready to go back.

Pat

Enjoy your planning.

Len n Jeanne · 01-11-2017, 11:11 PM

Sounds like a great trip!

There are several threads here on travel to and through Canada: dealing with customs, what you can and cannot bring to Canada-- or back from Canada to the United States, and so on. These should make for informative reading.

SpiceStream · 01-21-2017, 07:05 AM

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f42/...ns-151946.html

I have not had a chance to chronicle the whole trip yet, but we had a blast in our old Motorhome.

The main thing you need to do is get ready to be ready for anything and treat it as the adventure that it will be. We left from the Hospital after my wife's last radiation treatment for 6 weeks, we did not plan on making it home in one piece in our old 84 Airstream motorhome, but we did, without any major problems. Take your time, it will be allot of driving, we put on just under 12,000 spectacular miles. This is the way to do this trip, I was on a cruise to Alaska when I was a kid, we visited some of the same places, but i never felt connected to the land in the way we were on this trip.

The first picture is in denali with Mt Mckinley in the background.
the second is in Valdez, we had a fantastic time there.

Let me know if you have any direct or general questions.

Curt