5-day trip to Alaska, late July

I’m writing this post just as an informative account of my trip to Alaska, as I’m sure there are people who would like to visit but don’t have time for a 2 week trip. There wasn’t a ton on reddit when I was researching myself so I thought I’d add. I enjoyed my time, and think what I did would be a good introductory trip to the state. Locals and seasoned Alaskans can feel free to tell me what we did wrong, but here’s my account/advice.

Trip notes: Trip consisted of me (24M) and 3 of my friends (also 24M) for 5 nights 6 days. We focused on the southern heel of Alaska bc Denali was too far of a drive from ANC to be worth it on a 5 day trip All 4 of us are pretty active and athletic on a comparative basis and were trying to ball on a budget as best we could.

Bear Spray Note: Don’t buy bear spray immediately. You should get some, but try to rent it, or call ahead to one of the places you’re staying and see if they have any you can borrow (a lot of places do just from people who leave it behind when they don’t use it). It retails for like $40-50 most places. (If $50 is no sweat for you then it doesn’t really matter, just get it).

Day 1: Flew into Anchorage (direct from MSP). Ubered to our rental car (booked through Turo) Rental cars are pretty expensive so try to book early if possible. I think the car itself came out to about $730 total after the minimum insurance etc. Stopped at Costco in Anchorage to get food food for a couple days, then Walmart for a few other things. Drove to our first stay at Renfro’s Retreat near Moose Pass, AK. Nice place, stayed 2 nights. We booked our own cabin (slept 4). It had a full kitchen set up, and a full bathroom, plenty of outlets, and was lakefront on Kenai Lake with a firepit on the property which was super nice. No WiFi but data worked fine if you have Verizon (wifi at main lodge) If you want to book them I’d book through their own website, it’ll be cheaper than third parties.

Day 2: Whitewater Rafting at Chugach Outdoor Center. (Around like $220 per person) They provide drysuits but if you’re someone who runs cold wear a few layers and good warm socks. The dry suit keeps you dry, not warm. Water was high so rapids were in classes 4-5. It was tough, cold, and super fun. The guides are pretty awesome, they prep you pretty well. The rapids were wicked. A couple people on other boats fell out but no one on our trip got hurt or anything. Prob not the rafting trip you wanna bring your mother-in-law on, but if you’ve got any kind of coordination/balance and you’re not overweight, you should be fine. The guides do make it sound like every rapid you approach is a life/death scenario though lol.

After rafting we went back to Renfro’s and rented kayaks to cruise on the lake (free)

That evening we hiked the Vagt lake trail. Pretty cool for a short hike. There were a couple cool cliff jumping platforms toward the back half of the trail.

Day 3: Checked out of Renfro’s and drove down to Seward. Hiked the Harding Ice Field in Kenai Fjords national park. One of the coolest but harder hikes I’ve ever done. Temp was in the low 70s but I sweated through everything I was wearing pretty quickly. You basically have to decide whether you want to wear long sleeves to avoid the bugs, but be hot, or vice versa. My friends wore hiking boots but I got away with running shoes, they were just soaked by the end bc the last quarter of the hike is through shallow melting snow. Took us about 3 and a half hours to get to the top (stopping for pictures and stuff pretty frequently) and about 2 and a half to get down. I think it was about 8 miles total with like a 3000ft+ elevation gain If you don’t want to do the whole icefield they have shorter hikes just to see overlooks of exit glacier which are also pretty cool.

After the hike we drove to our second and final stay in Seward (technically Bear Creek) at Spruce Lodge. Another really nice place, got a deal on Expedia. Very modern, new construction, hotel/motel style. Close to the town of Seward and wedged on the road that leads to Kenai Fjords NP. They have a coffee shop on the grounds that’s pretty good, communal fire pit and grills too.

Bought groceries at the Safeway in Seward. Download the Safeway app, I shit you not we saved about $25 dollars every time we went there because of it. The app turns highway robbery into more comparable grocery store prices

Day 4: Kenai Fjords Tour. 4 and a half hour Resurrection Bay tour. Took us around the bay, saw Whales, Orcas, otters, seals, sea lions, puffins. And a bunch of the islands and glaciers and stuff. Pretty cool but wouldn’t have wanted to be on the boat any longer than we were. They served lunch on the boat too. (Booked it through Renfro’s Resort and got a 20% discount). I’ve also heard good things about Major Marine tours. Their shops are like 50 feet from each other on the street in front of the harbor.

After Boat tour went to Millers Landing for dinner.

Day 5: Hiked Caines Head trail, south Seward. Pretty tame hike, cool river with tons of Salmon in it on the front half of the hike. Trail takes you to a beach where you do most of the rest of the hike. You can only do most of that beach portion during low tide.

**In hindsight I wish we would have used this day for a fishing charter or something bc seeing 20lb salmon fill a shallow river gave me the itch to go fishing lol. We just assumed it would be too expensive when we booked our trip initially.

After that we went souvenir shopping and did a bunch of touristy shit. I’ll be honest in saying I was unimpressed with most of the gift shops.

Ate dinner at Firebrand Barbeque. Food was great. Outdoor seating was cool. Didn’t get around to many restaurants other than Firebrand and Millers Landing, but heard really good things about Seward Brewing Company (only problem was they were closed when we tried to go on Tuesday)

Day 6: Drove back to Anchorage, got Krispy Kreme (stolen from us in the Midwest), dropped our car and went to the airport.

I think we each spent a little over $1K after we divvied everything up at the end. (Excluding flights) If you want more detail on anything we did lmk.