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Me and my friend have decided that now is a great time to visit Alaska. Mostly because we're both recently unemployed, bored, dislike hot weather, like exploring, enjoy meeting new people and experiencing awesomeness. We will be traveling up I5 through Canada and we're planning on taking our sweet time and doing whatever catches our attention. Essentially, a no stress, no rigid schedule road trip. At this point we have only a few simple goals. We want to go to Barrow. We want to drive along the Dalton Highway. We want to see Alaska's enormous mountain in the Denali National Park. Right now we're looking for thoughts and suggestions on awesome places to stop and great things to do in Alaska and while driving N through Canada. And it's not like the trip will happen immediately anyway. I still need to renew my passport and that will take approximately 3 weeks.
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May 20, 2014 07:47
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 07:19 |
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Haji posted:dislike hot weather FYI Alaska is definitely feeling the effects of climate shift. This winter was incredibly mild, and the summer is starting to look consistent with last year's scorcher. Don't be surprised if you come up here and the temps are pushing 80 degrees.
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May 22, 2014 04:52
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I hope someone can disprove me on this, but I've always thought of northern Alaska as pretty boring. The highlights are supposed to be the wilderness interior and the coastline. I think the Kenai is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Also, housecat-sized mosquitoes.
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May 22, 2014 04:58
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Aliquid posted:I hope someone can disprove me on this, but I've always thought of northern Alaska as pretty boring. The highlights are supposed to be the wilderness interior and the coastline. I think the Kenai is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Also, housecat-sized mosquitoes. I always thought it would be cool to drive up to Deadhorse just to see how desolate it is, but it's also like a 1000 mile round-trip from Fairbanks. I like driving, but not that much.
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May 22, 2014 07:56
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I'm going to have to buy a full sized spare and some extra gas cans for the trip. Just to make sure. All in all, it should be well worth the drive. I've never seen tundra or big white snowy deserts or anything like that. Also, all the wildlife is kinda thrilling. I've spent a lot of time in N Idaho and NW Montana and love it there. I imagine that I'll get to see a lot of the same sort of terrain and animals since at least part of my trip will involve mountain wilderness. We're definitely going to take a plane to Barrow just so we can say we've been inside the Arctic circle. Unfortunately Pepe's North of the Border burnt down so that's a picture we wont be able to take. *Sad* Nothing like crappy mexican food in the extreme north. Woo! We were also hoping to cross into Russia, but after a little research we figured out that would be near impossible to do. Which sucks! OMG it sucks. So close to Russia and no way to get there. We read that people who try it get held and then deported. I know someone from college who live in SE Siberia and I was thinking we could take a train there or something after crossing the straight near Nome. Apparently, Russia is super paranoid about people wandering around Siberia though.
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May 22, 2014 10:09
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Buy "The Milepost": http://www.themilepost.com/. It's incredibly valuable to have for such a trip.
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Jun 1, 2014 22:01
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Almost ready! Bought a copy of The Milepost, got my car checked out and all the fluids/filters changed, put in new spark plugs, etc, etc. Also got the car detailed so that it will be comfortable to travel in and also sleep in if needed. Also, got my passport! Woo. It was renewed much faster than I thought possible. I paid for the expedited service and got it back in just 2 weeks. Talked to my landlord and let him know that I'll be gone for a while. Gave him a lump check to pay the rent out for a long while just to be sure that all is paid and good and I can continue my adventure as long as I like and not have to worry about mundane issues like rent.
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Jun 9, 2014 03:43
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Where do you plan to fly to Barrow from? It's not going to be cheap no matter what you do. If you drive to Prudhoe and take the tour you'll still get to jump in the Arctic Ocean. I'd suggest driving the Denali Highway. Also don't forget to stop somewhere in Southeast; there are 3 towns with road access. Skagway and Haines are both pretty neat but a stop in Hyder would let you visit one of the few towns in the USA that acts Canadian. They even have a Canadian area code.
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Jun 14, 2014 05:56
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Awesome! Thank you. I will definitely check out the SE. I have a friend from that area and he tells me that it is the most beautiful place on earth. He also tells me that there are only two ways to get to his hometown. Boat or plane. I was hoping to fly to Barrow from Anchorage since I have a friend who lives there that will let me abandon my car with her. I figured that I can shamelessly use her generosity to use Anchorage as a jump off point for anywhere I want to go that I can't drive to. In other news, I just bought a new car stereo! Woo! Once I get it installed, I will be able to listen to all my mp3s with just a USB stick. Sweet. I'll also be able to plug into it with any USB device which is just pure awesome. Good road music is now a go!
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Jun 17, 2014 11:13
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Ripping my car apart: The old stereo  The new  Old wiring harness doesn't quite work  Twisting the new wiring harness together  Now it works!  And power!  So now that I have my stereo installed and haven't set my car on fire, all I have to do is put the final bit of trim on and then my new stereo will be all full of awesome. I also have a final car maintenance appointment and then my car will be fully road trip worthy.
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Jun 19, 2014 10:35
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drat, that does not look big enough to comfortably sleep in for days. I hope those seats fold back flatter than it looks. Other than the endless driving, sounds like an awesome trip-to-be.
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Jun 19, 2014 11:22
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It is super comfy. The seats lay all the way down flat too. I've slept in my car on trips before and it is amazingly comfortable to sleep in. And I will have the tent with me, so it's not like there will be a lack of options. We can sleep in the car, camp, stay in hostels, couch surf, stay in motels, whatever. I've already got 4 friends that are going to let us couch surf.
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Jun 19, 2014 22:55
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How'd it go? I did the drive from Seattle to Anchorage once. Beautiful counry: I wish I'd taken more pictures.
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Jul 7, 2014 04:31
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I have returned! The trip was shorter than I thought it would be due to some other obligations, but whatever, it was still a blast. Canada was totally awesome, but OMG, fix your roads already. Seriously. Canadian roads suck hard. Fairbanks sucks. Small town and wild Alaska are full of fun and awesome, but Fairbanks is just stupid. I will have photos up soon.
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Jul 26, 2014 05:14
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Wild animals were seen! Not all were photographed since they tend to move quickly. We saw various birds, rodents, foxes, rabbits, caribou, elk, deer, moose, bears, etc. First off, yes, this is a cat eating a fox. This is the town of Lillooet. A part of me hopes that this is the fiercest of cats and that it painstakingly hunted and killed this fox on it's own. Reality says that the fox is one of many roadkills that we saw.    Moose! They tend to be shy, but I still got a few picks of them anyway.     Buffalo. Plodding, carefree, easy to photograph.    Beaver dam.  All the other animals we saw were FAST and completely uninterested in photo ops.
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Jul 26, 2014 06:11
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The Milepost proved to be interesting. It was helpful in some ways and extremely misleading in others. I ended up giving it away to a family from one of the former soviet states. Couldn't quite place the accent, but whatever. Anyway, they were happy to have a map and we pointed out the aspects of the book that were actually useful. The most useful part of the Milepost was finding gas stations during late night drives. Until we figured out what to look for, the Milepost is pretty much the only thing that let us drive through the night. What the Milepost fails at is accommodation listings. We needed a place to stay in Fairbanks and we wanted to stay in a motel since we had great luck with an independent motel in Prince George that we just accidentally stumbled into. So we found a listing in the Milepost that made this one particular place sound really nice and comfortable. Mission accepted. Using the Milepost and maps we drove around for about an hour attempting to locate this hidden gem. When we finally found it, we both immediately proclaimed, "NO!".       We then continued our search for accommodations in which we were continuously thwarted because the Eskimo Olympics were in town. Joy. Eventually we were able to rent a room at the Super 8. We became immediately made aware as to why rooms were available. The place stank. Bad. Our particular room had dried vomit puddles on the floor. Lovely. By this time we pretty much didn't care. Threw some towels down over the vomit stains, opened the window so the room wouldn't reek and crashed out. The next day Fairbanks continued to be a depressive sink of terror. To the point that we were laughing uncontrollably and swearing to each other to never return for any reason whatsoever. OMG. Not only is Fairbanks horrible, but it looks like the retarded bastard love child of the city we currently live in and the city we went to college in. So we had driven over 2500 miles to essentially go to the twilight zone version of home. Nope. Never again.
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Jul 26, 2014 06:35
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Speaking of motel experiences.. The place we stumbled into in Prince George was AWESOME. It's called Grama's Inn and it was so super comfy. We had been driving around forever and seeing all the sights and really wanted a place to stay that had comfy beds and warm showers so we decided to look for a motel, drove about 2 or 3 blocks and immediate registered and payed for a room. When we woke up in the morning, the skies were yellow. I thought it had something to do with the sun not going down in the more northern areas, but we soon found out it was actually because of a nearby forest fire. Cool! The pictures are kinda crappy and don't really show how YELLOW the sky was, but it gives an idea.      
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Jul 26, 2014 06:51
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I've pretty much decided that I like it better @ home in the rainforest. Alaska is pretty cool, but the trees are way too short and packed way too closely together. That and tundra is kinda weird. Although, I didn't get to see Anchorage and I hear that it's a lot like Seattle, so I may enjoy Anchorage. But I can go there on a different trip. Maybe take one of the Alaska coastline cruises one of these days.
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Jul 28, 2014 06:55
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Did you end up making it to the north coast?
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Jul 28, 2014 08:45
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Nope. My time got cut too short for that. I did get as far as Chicken, AK on the US side and Dawson City on the Canadian side though.
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Jul 28, 2014 09:30
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 07:19 |
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Haji posted:Nope. My time got cut too short for that. I did get as far as Chicken, AK on the US side and Dawson City on the Canadian side though. How did you like the Taylor Highway? One of my favorite places in the state, especially headed south with the Wrangells in the distance. Was the highway in good shape?
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Aug 23, 2014 20:01
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