Traveling in Alaska on a small cruise ship or tour bus gives you near-countless adventures to embark on. Throughout your time exploring The Final Frontier, you’ll be able to find an activity that delights your senses, challenges your worldly perceptions and encourages an unbridled sense of awe.
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Day trips via cruises and tours are among the best ways to explore Alaska’s many beautiful features, including cultural exhibitions, nature cruises, helicopter rides, and glacier hikes. In this post, we describe our seven favorite cruises and tours to take while you’re in Alaska. Best of all, Alaska Tour Jobs employees get a discount on the tours!
Anchorage
Portage Glacier
This tour lasts about 5.5 hours and starts on a deluxe motorcoach. The comfortable bus whisks you along the scenic Seward Highway to Portage Glacier. After enjoying the sweeping Alaskan landscape, you’ll board the MV Ptarmigan, the only boat operating on Portage Lake, and cruise out into the shimmering water for an unforgettable one-hour cruise across iceberg-dotted Portage Lake and taking in breathtaking views of Portage Glacier.
Last, you’ll wrap up the journey by visiting the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center for the opportunity to view local and endangered wildlife up close.
Spencer Glacier Rail & Trail
This all-day tour takes about 10 hours and leaves Anchorage by train. After you zip along the shore of Turnagain Arm, part of the 6 million acres of Chugach National Forest, you’ll travel through Girdwood and watch for salmon swimming up cascading stream waterfalls.
Next, the train ride takes you to Spencer Glacier, which is home to bears, moose, coyotes,
and wolves. Before returning to Anchorage, you’ll get to hop off the train at the Spencer whistle stop and enjoy a narrated two-mile hike. The short hike leads to Spencer Lake and offers a spectacular glacier view.Denali
Denali Peak Flightseeing Adventure
This 2.5 hour, 200-mile flight lets you soar among the jagged mountaintops and get a bird’s eye view of tumbling glaciers. The flight lets you glide in the air within half of a mile of Denali, and then circle around the spectacular mountain to see every corner of its beautiful face.
During your journey, your pilot provides expert commentary to shed insight into Alaska’s grand mountaineering and aviation tradition.
River Rafting: Canyon Run
If keeping your feet closer to the ground fits your adventure style, then this four-hour whitewater rafting trip will be perfect for you. This tour is best taken in the warm summer months because you’ll get soaked to the bone on this 11-mile Class III-IV whitewater trip on the Nenana River.
A few of the locally infamous rapid your experienced guides will navigate you through include “Razorback,” “Two Rocks” and “Cable Car.”
Fairbanks
Riverboat Discovery Cruise
How often do you get to enjoy an authentic 5.5-hour steamboat cruise in Alaska? Well, now is your chance! This cruise takes you down the Chena and Tanana rivers, which teem with salmon through most of the summer.
Among the most serene parts of the journey is when you get to witness the “wedding of the rivers,” which is when the Chena’s clear waters merge with the glacier-fed Tanana. This wedding causes underwater storm clouds of silt that rise and fall across the river.
After momentarily disembarking from the steamboat, you get to meet some award-winning sled dogs and witness a sled-dog demonstration. Last, before returning to Fairbanks you get an extremely educational guided tour through a replica of an Athabascan Indian Village.
Chena Hot Springs & Ice Museum Tour
If you’re looking for a relaxing getaway after a long trip or work week, then take this six-hour tour to Chena Hot Springs and then cool off at the Ice Museum. After rejuvenating yourself in the hot spring, you can enjoy a tour of the largest year-round ice environment in the world, which is constructed from more than 1,000 tons of ice and snow.
If you enjoy a cocktail, you can also partake in the ice bar sip your specialty drink on an ice stool. The tour winds down with an option: if you’re older than 18 and don’t mind an all-natural bath, then you can ditch the towels and dip into the natural outdoor hot springs rock lake. And if you’ve had enough relaxation for the day, consider enjoying an educational Geothermal Energy Tour instead.
These Alaska tours and among our favorite day trips in Alaska. Whether we’re suggesting activities for friends and family, or recommending our employees go enjoy The Final Frontier, we find these trips always hit the mark.
Have you considered working in Alaska? You should! It’s an incredible journey in an amazing state. Take a look at our current job openings to see what catches your interest.