My wife and I returned in September from our second tour with John Hall's Alaska. The first was their 12-Day Northbound in 2006 and the second was the 15-Day Cordova, Kennecott & Arctic Circle tour this year. Our tour manager on both tours was John Gailey, a resident of Alaska. With his knowledge of Alaska, experiences, help and concern for everyone, it made our tours an experience that we will never forget. John Hall's Alaska tours go places and do things that the rest do not. Everything is included and is first class. If you want to schedule a side trip, they will make it happen. The entire staff has been to Alaska, so if you have a question, they can answer it from experience.

We first became aware of John Hall's Alaska by attending one of their shows in the area. We were so impressed, we signed up shortly after. When we received their tour catalog the next year, we signed up again. We recommend John Hall's Alaska to everyone that we talk to about our Alaska experience.

Anchorage in Alaska is 5+ hours from Denver by air, Alaska is a huge State & the weather can be unpredictable even in summer, we travelled by hire car, just booked first night & car & went where we fancied, only did a little of what we wanted to due to large distances. Anchorage is a big city, but quite interesting for a couple of days, go South to Homer & just quickly look at Whittier (via the shared with train tunnel), do a boat trip but check the sea reports before you book, it can be very rough.

Go North through Anchorage to Denali National Park, we spent 4 days here & saw a lot of wildlife, try & pre book Hotel in Denali, although we got a supeb rate by phoning whilst we were in Denali, but i think we were lucky that the Cruise ship passengers weren't in town the nights we wanted.

You MUST visit Talkeetna south of Denali, it is an old mining/railway town (a village if in England) still with old buildings & lots of history, & take a float plane trip from here.

Alaska is BIG & the distances are huge, dont try & do too much, we had to not visit many places we had planned to see, unless you have unlimited time of course & lots of money, everything in Alaska is dearer than the rest of USA.

Enjoy

Absolutely my favorite vacation of all times! Alaska is definitely one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. However, I think my having family there made it all the more special plus they knew all the great places to go...so it was a plan free trip for me, I just went along for the ride! I got to do a glacier cruise (a must), travel to different places, which included Homer, Whittier, Anchorage, Kenai and I will go back that's for sure. I went during the summer, so weather was really nice, chilly on boats or by bodies of water, and at night time. Sun stays out most of the day during the summer, although late at night it's more like dusk. I was so tired it did not affect my sleeping at all. I loved all the wild life right in your face. Anchorage was the most commercialized part that I visited!

July 2008

The highlight our Alaskan trip was Talon Air Flightseeing.. It was amazing! Smooth take off and landing on a sea plane. Our family boarded onto a big john boat with a friendly guide. We motored tthrough the lake to the mouth of the creek. This creek is where salmon wait to swim upstream and the bears gather to fish for them.

Denali was great but after finding animals that we could only see with binoculars, we were amazed to see bears as we motored towards this creek. We had no idea we would watch them for the next four hours. Momma and her 3 cubs were our first sights. The cubs hovered close while Momma dove in to catch salmon. We also saw some teenager bears playing around and two black bears. It was really hard to put down the cameras and think about fishing.

The boats line up. At first I felt like there was a crowd but I quickly began enjoying as other people pulled in a salmon. My 11 year old daughter had great fun when the boat behind her cheered her on as she caught the two biggest salmon. They have an "Gentlemens agreement" and state regulations about sharing this spectacular area. Basically the beginning of the trip, fishing is ok. When it's your turn to be in the creek mouth and closest to the bear, you catch you limit quickly. After we caught our limit, the guide motored us to a waterfall and grilled a salmon for us. My husband was thrilled when they flew us over glaciers on the trip home.

Alaska was a wonderful vacation for our family. The bearviewing trip was a splurge but the most fabulous wildlife experience we have had.