Itinerary & Logistics for Eight-Day Trip to South Central Alaska

Alaska, North America, Road Trip, Tips, Travel, United States

Alaska is one of my favorite states I have been to. It was always on my bucket list, but with the pandemic restricting us from leaving the country and finding cheap flights, we thought this was the perfect time to go. We traveled to Alaska the first week in September, over Labor Day.

We ended up rerouting our itinerary because of bad weather on one of our scheduled camping nights. The below itinerary is not the exact order we went in, but the order I would go in if I were to do it again (and have good weather the whole time).

Itinerary

Friday

Fly into to Anchorage and arrive around dinner time. After picking up a rental car and checking into your lodging, get dinner in town at Sushi Ya.

Saturday

Spend all day in Anchorage. Pick up groceries for the week, as you won’t come across many more large grocery stores. If you are camping, you can stop at REI to pick up a fuel canister for your camp stove. Stop at Alaska Outdoor Gear Rental to rent a can of bear spray for the week.

Now it’s time to explore Anchorage! Get breakfast at Kriner’s Diner (the pancakes are amazing). Check out Lake Hood, Anchorage Market and Festival, and walk or bike along the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail. Enjoy a beer at 49th State Brewing, one of the most popular breweries in Alaska. Check out Point Woronzof, a beach spot next to the airport. One of the airport’s runways ends right before the point, so you’ll see planes right overhead. Grab some pizza at Moose’s Tooth and spend your second night at your Anchorage lodging.

Read in detail about my day in Anchorage here.

Sunday

Start the drive to Kenai Peninsula. Stop for a hike to Byron Glacier, about an hour east of Anchorage. The hike is about 3 miles round trip.

Stop at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, a home for rescued orphaned and injured animals. Spend an hour or two here.

Explore the town of Seward, where you will be staying for the night. Walk along the harbor and see the boats with the beautiful mountainous backdrop. The shops along the water are very cute. Have dinner and a beer at the Seward Brewing Company. The wonton steak nachos are 10/10!

See what all we did in the Kenai Peninsula here.

Monday

Fishing or other activity in Seward in the morning (would have loved to kayak in the fjords if the weather had cooperated!),

Hike to Harding Icefield, the largest icefield entirely within the US. You can complete this as a day hike or camp at the top like we did. Read about my backpacking experience here.

Tuesday

Hike back to car and drive 3.5 hours to Homer, a gorgeous coastal city on the southern coast of the Kenai Peninsula. See the small Russian Orthodox church with a view, Transfiguration of Our Lord Church, and stop at the Old Inlet Bookshop. Drive down the Homer Spit, a must-see when in the area. This is a long, skinny strip of land that stretches out into the ocean for 4.5 miles. Near the end of the Spit, there are restaurants, campgrounds, and shops. This is a very unique stop! Have dinner at AJ’s Oldtown Steakhouse & Tavern. Stay in Homer that night.

Wednesday

Drive 2.5 hours to Cooper Landing, which is known for its amazing fishing. Set up your campsite at the Russian River Campgrounds and fish the Russian River. They also have a day use area if you want to fish but not camp!

Get a beer at the nearby Cooper Landing Brewing Company and then make dinner at campsite that night.

Thursday

Drive to 1 hour to Hope, a small town located on the northern coast of the Kenai Peninsula. Check out town (if it’s before Labor Day and things are open). The streets of the town are dirt roads, and the buildings make you feel as if you’ve been transported back to an 1800s gold mining town. Walk down to the shore for some pretty pictures.

Drive 6 hours to Healy, stopping in Anchorage along the way to get any supplies needed and gas. Stay near Healy for the night. Your next day will start early, so it’ll be good to be staying nearby.

Friday

It’s time to see Denali National Park! The park encompasses 6 million acres of land and holds the tallest mountain in North America. There are not a lot of options to see the park, as the park service wants to keep it as wild and untouched by humans as possible. I recommend taking a bus tour (Tundra Wilderness Tour in Denali). The medium-length tour (6-7 hours) was the perfect length in my opinion, and is the most popular tour. The tour guide told us Denali only has about one week of autumn, and we were there during the 6th day of it. The trees were turning and there was some snow on the mountains. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to see the mountain Denali at the end of the tour. The mountain is so large that it has its own weather system surrounding it. Sometimes, it will be perfectly clear outside, but there are clouds completely covering the mountain. Only 30% of people visiting the park actually get to see the mountain because of this.

Saturday

Pack up things and go for a scenic drive through Hatcher’s Pass. Stop for a quick hike if you’d like. Drive back to Anchorage and return any rental gear you may have gotten. Pick up last-minute souvenirs. Dinner and drinks in Anchorage before flying out that night.

Lodging

We chose to spend most of our nights in Airbnbs. There are lots of cute, small cabins all over the state that looked perfect and cozy. We also brought our camping gear and camped for two of our nights. Another option that lots of people go with is renting an RV or camper van. I definitely looked into this, but it ended up being quite a bit more expensive, especially since we knew we wanted to tent camp a couple nights.

Weather

The weather was great while we were there! We had one day that was rainy, but the rest of our trip ranged from the 30s to high 60s. Sunny skies most of the time as well.

Costs per Person (Two People Total)

Considering how cheap we found flights to Anchorage, this trip wasn’t very expensive! I would budget more during non-COVID travel. We also picked fairly cheap lodging and camped a couple nights to keep the cost down.

Flight: $340

Lodging: $280

Rental Car: $215

Gas: $45

Other Transportation: $10

Food: $340

Activities: $150

Souvenirs: $100

TOTAL: $1480

Overall Thoughts

Alaska is so gorgeous. It’s also huge! We spent eight full days here and I feel like we barely scratched the surface. I loved everywhere we went, but if I were to come back, I’d love to check out some of the coastal towns like Sitka. I also REALLY want to go to Katmai National Park to see the grizzly bears, but it was too expensive to get there this time around. The Kenai Peninsula and Denali are highly worth a trip to Alaska! One thing to note is that if you travel here outside of the high season from Memorial Day to Labor Day, there are far fewer tourists, but also lots of shops and restaurants will be closed for the season.