Planning the Trip

I started to research Alaska forums (first and foremost in tripadvisor.com), read numerous trip reports, and studied itineraries offered by commercial tour operators. We soon came to understand that Alaska has much more to offer than just bears fishing. We also figured out that we will not be able to cover everything and will need to carefully plan for time, distance and budget. We agreed on a 2-weeks' time frame which was the most we would be able to afford, time- and budget-wise. I built an excel with multiple itinerary options and deliberated them back and forth.

From the start it was clear that our personal 'must do' list will also include South East Alaska (specifically, the Anan Creek Bear Observatory and Glacier Bay National Park). At an early stage we decided not to take a large-ship cruise – we tried it in the past in the Caribbean and thought it would not be the right way for us. We did seriously consider a small-ship cruise, but decided it would be too expensive – a week or so of small-ship cruising would have eaten up a budget that would otherwise buy us 2 weeks of a 'regular' trip.

Eventually we decided on an itinerary that would include our 'must do' on South East, South Central, and Interior. The first and most important piece in the puzzle was - where and when to see the bears. We contacted Silver Salmon Creek Lodge 18 months before the planned travel date, and based on their recommendation we locked a 2-night stay in mid-August. The rest of the itinerary was built around these dates.

We booked our international flights and rental car in November, and the internal Alaska flights in January. By January we also had most of the lodging locked, as well as most of the activities. In general, we made our own planning and bookings, either by the lodging/attractions web sites, by email, or (in rare cases) by phone. The only exception was Gustavus/Glacier Bay where we let our lodging arrange our activities for us. We didn't have a single issue with a reservation lost or not being honored.