Alaska Train & Cruise Ship Tours

To see Alaska's largely roadless grandeur, you won't need the roll call of planes, trains and automobiles. Trains and ships can convey you through the best of the Last Frontier's coastal beauty and wild interior. Most cruise ships berth at Seward or Whittier, where you can hop on a domed observation train car to continue to Anchorage, Talkeetna, Denali and Fairbanks. If you prefer, you can set up your train journey before your cruise instead of after.

Gray Line of Alaska

Gray Line, operated by Holland America cruise line, offers rail tour packages out of Seward, which is in south-central Alaska. You can ride a domed rail car to Anchorage, where you might see a moose downtown or hear flopping salmon in streams right by downtown bike paths. You can continue into the inspiration for "Northern Exposure," Talkeetna, for a look at small-town Alaska. After an overnight stop, continue on the Alaska Railroad to see grizzlies and wolf packs up in Denali National Park. If the weather is clear on the way, you'll enjoy a view of the snowcapped giant Mount McKinley on your left. Proceed south by domed rail car back to Anchorage or north to Fairbanks for your flight home. Gray Line also offers custom vacations, including sightseeing and luxury rail tours throughout Alaska and the Yukon Territory.

Gray Line of Alaska
6441 Interstate Circle
Anchorage, AK 99518
(800) 544-2206
graylinealaska.com

AlaskaTours.com

AlaskaTours.com can put together cruise and railroad packages for visitors leaving from Seward and Whittier. The company also provides intriguing add-ons, including wildlife viewing, Native culture adventures and Arctic experiences for those who want to branch off the Anchorage to Fairbanks route. AlaskaTours.com offers an alternative train journey out of the port of Skagway to the Yukon on the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad, built in 1898 during the Klondike Gold Rush. The company also can book cruises on the smaller ships of Cruise West, as well as a "best value" 13-day combo package.

AlaskaTours.com
413 G St.
Anchorage, AK 99501
(907) 277 3000
(866) 317-3325
alaskatours.com

Alaska Tour & Travel

"Don't go home from your Alaska cruise without seeing the land side of our great state," suggests the Alaska Tour & Travel website. The state's largest custom travel packaging company offers rail tours lasting from four to eight days, which allows visitors to start in Anchorage or Fairbanks and end in Seward for a southbound Gulf of Alaska cruise, or the reverse for a northbound cruise. The company provides free quotes on packages and a large selection of Denali lodges, as well as private tours to the lost world of Kantishna at the western terminus of the stellar scenic road through Denali National Park.

Alaska Tour & Travel
P.O. Box 221011
Anchorage AK 99522
(800) 208-0200
alaskatravel.com

Resources

Travel Alaska

Article Written By Jeannette Belliveau

Award-winning writer Jeannette Belliveau has written travel books and worked at the National Institutes of Health and "The Washington Post," as well as the business and sports desks of "The Baltimore Sun." She began writing professionally in 1975. Belliveau graduated summa cum laude from the University of Maryland, earning a Bachelor of Science in journalism.

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