There are two main hubs for exploring Alaska: Anchorage or Juneau. But which one do you plan? I think it very much depends on the time of year and the type of activities you want to enjoy on your trip. Anchorage seems like the easy choice because more people have heard of it and there are more direct flights to ANC than Juneau (JNU), but Juneau is the heart of the Inside Passage… So which do you choose?
I’ve put together the highlights of each destination so you can see what sort of experience each of these cities offers, as well as information about weather and the seasonality of each. If you’re not sure if you should head to Anchorage or Juneau don’t worry, we’ll help you sort it out and you’ll have a great trip. Please let us know if you have any additional questions by leaving a comment or sending us a note. We’re always happy to share more and love getting to talk about Alaska!
Types of Alaska Trips You Can Do
Unlike visiting California or Colorado, you can’t just up and decide to drive to Alaska with minimal planning. You have to be very intentional and plan your route and overnight stops carefully. Or you have to fly there and rent a car to get around. Or you could arrive by boat if your starting point is already in Washington State, but how do you actually pick where your primary destination should be? Well, you can decide if you should pick Anchorage or Juneau by figuring out what sort of experiences you want to have during your visit.
Land Based Alaska Vacation
If you’re planning a land based vacation where you fly into Anchorage. This means that you’ll be able to fly to ANC from Seattle, Portland OR, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Detroit, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, Newark, Houston, Washington DC, Dallas or Vancouver BC. Wow! That’s a lot of options! To fly to Juneau, you can only go through Seattle or Anchorage, but that doesn’t mean it’s off the table.
Once you’re in Anchorage you’re able to drive all over South Central Alaska which includes the Kenai Peninsula and up into the Interior. Heck, you could even drive all the way up into the Arctic Circle starting in Anchorage, but that’s a lot more time and planning than we’re talking about. You cannot get to all of these places from Juneau, but you can have a completely different style of trip.
Island Hopping in the Inside Passage
If you haven’t read it yet, be sure to check out our article all about Exploring the Inside Passage WITHOUT a Cruise Ship. Most people who come to Southeast Alaska, aka the Inside Passage, get to experience it on a cruise ship from Seattle or Vancouver. I’m not disparaging that type of travel, but it’s very limiting and you’ll get a very curated view of Southeast AK. If you fly into Juneau from Seattle, you can easily plan a trip to explore the Inside Passage spending more time in each destination.
In Juneau you can rent a car if you like or you can do guided tours to explore the area. Directly in Juneau you can easily spend a few days enjoying the museums and sights, and then with a few adventures away from town, you’ll enjoy everything the island has to offer. If you’ve come up here on the Alaska Marina Highway (AMHS) with your own vehicle you’ll be able to explore all around the Juneau area and then board the boat for your next destination.
From Juneau you can do other ferries or passenger boats to different towns in Southeast Alaska or you can do little flights. From Juneau you can fly on Alaska Airlines to all sorts of places, or you can do seaplanes between destinations, but that starts to get more pricey than most people can afford. If you just pick two or three destinations on the Inside Passage, you can see all kinds of beautiful sights and have a wide variety of experiences and really keep the transportation costs down.
Highlights of Juneau as a Home Base
Juneau, the capital of Alaska, is a cool town on its own, and then when you add the tourism side of things you may just fall in love with it. It’s got the vibe of an artsy community with a strong element of Tlingit culture (one of Southeast Alaska’s indigenous nations), and then lots of outdoor activities. Juneau has some wonderful parks and it’s surrounded by the Tongass National Forest. And then fishing!! Here’s just some of what you can look forward to with having it as your home base. There are so many things to do in Juneau!
Best Juneau Tours and Activities
Ooh, where to begin?! I’ll start with my favorite Juneau activity which is a combination of several things. Glacier pack rafting and hiking from Juneau is really cool and combines flightseeing with the unique things you can do up in the glaciers, including paddling, crossing glacier creeks and navigating crevasses is just such a fun and fascinating experience. The views you get from the seaplane for the flightseeing part, or any flightseeing from Juneau for that matter, are just striking.
Another fun tour to do from Juneau is visiting the Mendenhall Glacier. It’s got a great visitor center, hiking trails, salmon spawning grounds and there are fun kayak and canoe tours that get up close to this enormous glacier. The Mendenhall Glacier is great to visit on your own or as part of a tour. If you want to do glaciers from the water, you can do a Tracy Arm Fjord tour.
Fishing in Juneau is also fun. They have some strong salmon runs, from kings to chum salmon, sockeye to silvers. You can fish from shore on your own or with a guide, you can do guided tours, and there is even fly-out fishing. And if you’re more in the running for some deep sea fishing, doing a charter for halibut or cod is an option too. Juneau might not be a famous fishing destination like the Kenai Peninsula or Copper River, but it’s got lots of options.
The city of Juneau has some wonderful museums and galleries as well. You can visit the Alaska State Museum, the Juneau-Douglass Museum, the Sealaska Heritage Center and also just walk through town appreciating all the awesome Tlingit installations of totem poles and panels. It’s a wonderful place to explore on foot.
Day Trips and Overnights Away from Juneau
And yes, since Juneau is such a hub of transportation in Southeast Alaska you have many options for where you can go from here. If you have your own car, you’ll be using the AMHS and can choose from a few different ports after Juneau, but the first stop I’d pick is Haines. It’s a fun town with tons of wildlife and outdoor activities. There’s a very vibrant Chilkat Tlingit culture in Haines, and you can even go from here to drive up into the Yukon and then to the Interior of Alaska. Other ports you can choose from include Sitka, Gustavus, Tenakee Springs or Wrangel.
If you didn’t stop in Ketchikan on your way up the Inside Passage, or maybe you’re heading south on the AMHS then be sure Ketchikan is one of your stops. It’s a full day’s boat trip on the ferry from Juneau, but you can also fly there on Alaska Airlines (1 hour flight). I love Ketchikan and it’s another wonderful town to spend several days.
A fun way to do a day trip from Juneau up to Haines or Skagway is to do the Alaska Fjordlines boat which is just a few hours through the beautiful fjords of the Inside Passage. This trip is part whale watching and part transportation. You can head up to one of these northern towns and then spend a night or two and then take the Fjordline back down to Juneau. It’s a great way to go island hopping in the Inside Passage.
Why Choose Anchorage as a Travel Hub
As I talk to people about their Alaska trips and how they plan them, the usual answer is that they’re flying into Anchorage and they don’t know what to do from there. Yes, Anchorage is a fun town if you’ve got friends to hang out with or have fun day trips planned, but in general it’s not a city people are just itching to hang out downtown in. I think what makes Anchorage a great destination is how it can function as an easy hub for visiting the Kenai Peninsula (Seward), the MatSu Valley (Palmer) and Whittier (Prince William Sound). But there’s more to choosing Anchorage as your home base than the surrounding towns.
Best Anchorage Tours and Activities
I want to start by giving a shoutout to the Anchorage Museum, which is amazing. This is one of the best collections of both art and history, mixed with exhibits on the current lives within different indigenous nations in Alaska. If you only have a half a day in Anchorage, GO HERE. But since we’re talking about having Anchorage be a hub to explore from, you should also set aside time to get out to the Alaska Native Heritage Center, which is full of information and experiences.
Also directly in Anchorage is one of the coolest bike trails with AWESOME wildlife experiences. If you want to rent bikes, e-bikes or regular, there are several options and then you can hit the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail up to Kincaid Park. As you ride along you’ll get some beautiful views of the city, the Cook Inlet (maybe see some belugas) and then you’ll ride through prime moose territory. The last time I biked this trail we saw nine moose!
One more fun thing to plan for while you’re in Anchorage enjoying one of the beautiful flightseeing tours that leaves from Lake Hood. Rust’s Air Service has several different flights that go all over South Central Alaska and either keep it just with the flightseeing or they do landing tours for bear viewing or glaciers.
Day Trips and Overnights Away from Anchorage
This is where Anchorage becomes a convincing home base for an Alaska trip. You can easily stay in Anchorage and then do day trips to Whittier, Seward and Palmer. Whittier is where you have to go through the one-lane tunnel and you’ll do boat tours out to College Fjord and Prince William Sound. Seward is the launch point for Kenai Fjords National Park and all kinds of fishing experiences on Resurrection Bay. And then Palmer is the beautiful farm country nestled between the Talkeetna and Chugach Mountains. Here you’ll find the Knik and Matanuska Glaciers, Hatcher Pass and Independence Mine State Park, and some wonderfully unique stops, like the Musk Ox Farm or Reindeer Farm. It’s awesome.
I would say that the most popular day trip from Anchorage is either a very long full day or an overnight trip up to Denali National Park. While you can make it a day trip, it’s best done with at least one night staying in Denali Park village. The bus tours deep into the tundra and the hiking opportunities are unforgettable, so it’s worth the time if you can spare it.
Check out our 7 Day Alaska Road Trip Plan for an easy vacation that uses Anchorage as a home base.
Alaska Parks to Visit: Where to Launch From
I think the biggest attractor to Alaska for many people is the chance to experience some of the most beautiful, and in many cases, most remote, wildernesses. Alaska has eight National Parks, several National Monuments, the largest temperate rainforest, awesome state parks and seemingly endless protected land. But how do you actually get to visit these places, and do you have better opportunities from Anchorage or Juneau? Well, you have very different opportunities.
National Parks in Alaska and Where to Start
Here’s the list of Alaska National Park that might be on your hopeful itinerary, and then we’ll get into how to visit them: Denali, Kenai Fjords, Kobuk Valley, Gates of the Arctic, Katmai, Lake Clark, Wrangell-St Elias, and Glacier Bay National Park. There are also some very grand National Monuments and Preserves: Misty Fjords, Aniakchak, Bering Land Bridge, Cape Krusenstern, and Noatak. Some of these are exceptionally remote, but quite a few can be visited from Juneau or Anchorage.
Southeast Alaska National Parks
From Juneau you actually aren’t too far to Glacier Bay National Park. You can do a day trip or overnight from Juneau and get to experience the amazing glaciers and wildlife, and it’ll be unforgettable. I love the feeling of the breeze off a tidewater glacier with the wildlife lounging on ice all around. You can get her from Juneau via seaplane or doing the AMHS to Gustavus and doing a boat tour through the Park.
The Tongass National Forest is the largest temperate rainforest in the world and it takes up much of Southeast Alaska, with Juneau being in the heart of it. Mendenhall Glacier is a part of it, as are many of the camping areas and recreation sites along the Inside Passage. Including our other beautiful park recommendation…
The other “park” you can visit in Southeast Alaska on the Inside Passage is Misty Fjords National Monument, which is a National Forest Service area. To visit here you can add it to your side trip to Ketchikan as this is either a flightseeing or boat tour sort of experience. Tours can be just sightseeing or you can visit for guided hiking, backpacking or wildlife trips. It’s gorgeous and one of the most dramatic landscapes on the Inside Passage.
Central Alaska Parks to Visit from Anchorage
Yes, this is why people love Anchorage as a hub for Alaska trips. Two hours south of Anchorage is Kenai Fjords National Park, which is the most epic whale watching and puffin destination. You board your boat in Seward and head out into the Gulf of Alaska and then up through different fjords to look for orcas, humpback whales, dolphins, puffins (horned and tufted), bears, mountain goats, Dall sheep and more. And of course you get to visit tidewater glaciers.
The other park you’re probably eyeing if you choose Anchorage for your AK trip is Denali National Park. Yes, Denali is beautiful and every day I miss working there. It’s either an ALL DAY trip or an overnight or two, but I think a three day visit is best. You can see bears, moose, caribou, birds of all sorts, and of course Denali itself. The park has limited access as you’ll need to enter on a bus, either a guided tour or a transit bus, for hiking and wildlife viewing opportunities.
“What about Katmai and Lake Clark National Parks?” Yes, you visit these from Anchorage too. You can fly to both from Lake Hood near ANC and visit for the day or a few nights. These are very costly parks to visit due to their remoteness, but they’re amazing. I first visited Katmai NP in my early twenties and didn’t appreciate how incredible it is. I recently got to visit Lake Clark National Park for the first time and it’s JAW DROPPING. These are complex parks to visit, but they’re amazing.
When it comes to Gates of the Arctic or Kobuk Valley NPs, these are also big ticket parks to visit where you must fly in with a bush pilot service and then spend a few days or do a short landing and hike. These are best saved for an epic adventure on their own vs trying to stack them with a first-time or shorter Alaska trip.
Best State Parks to Enjoy in Alaska
There are more parks in Alaska than the National Parks, and some of the state parks are just amazing. I love how the state parks in AK are all about either the recreation or the learning. Yes, they are protected places like the National Parks, but are much more user-forward, making them great places to add to your trip.
State Parks in Southeast Alaska
If you’ve made Juneau your home base for your Alaska trip, heading up the Glacier Highway beyond Mendenhall Glacier, you’ll come to Point Bridget State Park, which has beaches, hiking, ponds, forest, wildlife and is wonderfully remote with very few visitors. Coming closer to town you’ve got Ernest Gruening State Historical Park. Here you’ll find hiking, fishing, beach and historic exhibits.
For the spur destinations in Southeast Alaska that you can visit from Juneau, Haines has two wonderful state parks: Chilkat State Park and Chilkoot Lake State Recreation Area. Chilkat has hiking and coves, paddling and fishing, and it’s just gorgeous and quiet. Chilkoot Lake has some awesome paddling, fly and lure fishing, and some of the best wildlife watching anywhere on the Inside Passage (brown bears!).
If you’re adding some time down in Ketchikan, one of my favorite parks in Alaska is here, Totem Bight State Park. It’s full of totem poles and exhibits about their creation and their stories. It’s set just off the water so it’s a beautiful spot to enjoy learning about Tlingit culture and getting to see some of Alaska’s iconic totem poles.
South Central AK Parks
Just outside of Anchorage is Chugach State Park, the fourth largest state park in the USA. There are several access points, but my favorite is up at Eklutna Lake. It’s beautiful with the mountains rising from the shores of the lake. This is a great place for hiking and kayaking and is an easy day trip from Anchorage.
Heading south to the Kenai Peninsula, you’ve got the Chugach National Forest (I know, it’s in the wrong section) with a great visitor center on Portage Lake near the glacier, and lots of hiking trails in the valley, and then once you’re on the Kenai, you can head to Homer for Kachemak Bay State Park. This is one you’ll need to be on a tour for (unless you have friends here) because the bay is big and for hiking and kayaking you’ll need to do the boat from the Homer Spit.
Heading north from Anchorage, Independence Mine State Historic Park is really cool. Learn about gold mining and do the hike up to Gold Cord Lake before you drive through Hatcher Pass on the way to Denali State Park. State park? Yep, Denali State Park is full of hiking trails and viewpoints. Some of the best views of the largest mountain in North America are from the roadside viewpoints and trails in Denali State Park.
So, now that you know what you’ll find in each area, do you think you know if you want to choose a trip based out of Juneau or Anchorage? I hope so, but if you’re still unsure, just leave a comment or send us a note and we’ll help you out. Besides having lived in Alaska, we get to visit often and are always happy to share more advice and suggestions.
