A Travel Guide to Alaska
Alaska is huge and there is so much to do and see visitors need to decide in advance the areas they want to visit and the sights and activities they want to cover. There are five regions to the state, Far North, Interior, Southwest, Southcentral and the Inside Passage.
The Far North region is North of the Arctic Circle and is home to the Inupiat Eskimos who still live largely as they have for hundereds of years. The main cities are Nome on the West coast and Barrow and Prudhoe Bay on the North Coast. The Prudhoe Bay area can only be accessed with a special permit as it is home to many oil installations but there are organised tours to the area.
The Interior region is home to North America's tallest mountain, Mt McKinley and the regions extensive forests are full of wildlife such as grizzly bears, carabu, buffalo and much more. The Denali National Park is to the South of the region close to the highway running between Fairbanks and Anchorage.
The Southwest region is famous for it's wildlife and the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge covers over 19 million acres of forest and tundra, a wildlife paradise. This area is home to the Yup'ik Eskimos who provide a rich cultural heritage for the visitor to experience.
The Southcentral region has the largest population of all the regions with over half of Alaska's population living there. Offering the visitor activities such as hiking, hunting and fishing it is both remote but also enjoys good transport links. The main city is Anchorage and Prince William Sound to the South has 10,000 square miles of waterways and 10,000 glaciers.
The Inside Passage is largely made up from fjords cut into the mountains by glaciers millions of years ago and now provides an excellent habitat for all kinds of wildlife as well as spectacular scenery for the tourist. Visitors can enjoy great sport fishing with an abundance of Pacific salmon as well as a variety of summer and winter activities such as hiking, rafting, cross country skiing and much more.
There is a wide variety of self catering vacation rentals in Alaska ranging from city condos, lakefront cabins to wilderness lodges.
