Alaska Vacation Rentals: An Introduction
If you are looking for something different for your next holiday destination, you might want to consider going to Alaska. Known as the largest state in the US, with a total area equal to the combined areas of California, Montana and Texas, Alaska offers unspoiled natural landscapes that provides a setting for plenty of attractions and activities for all kinds of travelers.
The state also has a lot of vacation rental homes and vacation cottages that you can choose from so you should not have a hard time looking for your accommodation arrangements. We offer listings for Alaska vacation offers and Alaska vacation deals in Juneau, Anchorage, Barrow, Deadhorse, Fairbanks, Homer, Kodiak and in the other cities in Alaska. To help you in planning your vacation, we have also outlined some of the best attractions to go to, activities to do and events and festivals to watch out for in Alaska whether you would be traveling alone, with your family or with your friends.
Alaska Vacation Rentals: Attractions to See
Dubbed as America's final frontier, the state offers a lot more than just snow and an icy backdrop. Here are some of the great attractions and sights that you may want to see as you visit Alaska.
Located in the largest city in Alaska, Anchorage, the Alaska Native Heritage Center offers something for travelers of all ages. It features different exhibits that help visitors to better understand how the first inhabitants of Alaska lived. If you want to learn more about the history of Alaska and its people, you may want to check in a vacation rental home in Anchorage and arrange for a trip to the center.
While staying at an Anchorage vacation rental home, you can also add a trip to the Imaginarium on your itinerary, especially if you are traveling with your family and kids. This discovery center gives visitors the opportunity to see plenty of interesting exhibits and displays that teach everything from color and light principles to how animals live and survive.
Home to the highest mountain in North America, Mount McKinley, Denali National Park offers breathtaking sceneries and a wide range of outdoor recreational activities. The park also has a wilderness area which is the home of numerous grizzly bears, wolves, moose, caribou and other wild creatures. A lot of travelers who are looking to commune with nature while having scenic views of glistening snow-capped mountains rent an Alaska vacation rental and arrange for a while vacation exploring this massive state park. Some of the activities that you can do if you choose to take advantage of an Alaska vacation offer here include bus tours, hiking, backpacking, whitewater rafting, mountaineering and camping. With all of these activities, you would surely enjoy your stay in Alaska even if you are traveling alone or with your family or friends.
Many tourists who are staying at Fairbanks vacation rentals make sure that they go to the El Dorado Gold Mine, a gold mine and a tourist attraction which was founded during the early 1900s. The gold mine was originally a placer mining claim that eventually evolved into an informational mine and a tourist spot. Today, the mine offers several tours daily for its guests.
If you want to experience the best in Alaskan fare, then the Alaska Salmon Bake and Palace Theater should be at the top of your places to visit during your holiday in Alaska. Aside from delicious food, it also offers plenty of entertainment being one of the best dining theaters in the state. Make sure that you would be going to this theater if you are staying at a Fairbanks vacation rental home with your family or friends and you would be able to not just treat your taste buds but also your eyes.
Traveling with young children could sometimes be difficult, especially if the location you go to do not offer a lot of kid-friendly attractions. Fortunately, in Alaska, this would not be a problem at all, as there are a lot of tourist destinations which offer fun and interesting activities for children of ages and a good example would be the Alaska Museum of Natural History in Anchorage. Here, children would surely enjoy looking at the displays of Alaskan dinosaurs and witnessing simulated fossil digs.
Another popular tourist destination in Anchorage, H2Oasis is one of the largest indoor water parks in the US. It was opened on 2003 and features a 575-foot-long "Lazy River" that circles the park, a wave pool that generates three to four-foot waves, a Master Blasted uphill water coaster, a children's lagoon that has a pirate ship with seven slides and many other attractions. You could book an Alaska vacation rental home located near Chelsea Street in Anchorage and you should be able to enjoy the attractions of the water park while still being near many other tourist destinations in the area.
Located on Kodiak Island, the Buskin River State Park allows visitors to see the beauty of the shorelines of Alaska. Some of the activities that you can do here would include saltwater fishing, fly fishing, wildlife viewing and a variety of eco-adventures. We have several listings of Kodiak vacation rentals that you might want to browse through if you are planning to go to this state park and the other tourist spots on Kodiak Island.
Another museum that you should definitely visit while in Alaska would be the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum. This museum offers exhibits and displays including an art gallery and a simulation of airplane storefronts of the past which detail the history of the airlines of Alaska.
Alaska Vacation Rentals: Outdoor Recreational Activities to Do
When staying at an Alaska vacation rental, there are a myriad of different activities that you can do aside from just sightseeing and going to the different attractions. Here are a couple that you may want to try.
The lively rivers of Alaska attract raft riders and kayakers from all over the world. If you are looking for the most thrilling rapids where you can do some whitewater rafting, then Alaska is definitely one of the best states to go to. You can rent an Alaska vacation home or an Alaska vacation cottage and look for companies which offer rafting or kayaking trips.
There are basically different ways to see the glaciers in Alaska and those would be through land, through sea or through air. If you want to view them on land, you can simply go to one of Alaska's highways which are in viewing distance of some glaciers. If you want to have a closer look at them on sea, you can book a cruise that pass by some of the "rivers of ice" in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Glacier Bay National Park and Prince William Sound. You can also arrange for a sightseeing trip aboard a small plane or a helicopter. You can choose from any of the depending on the Alaska vacation special that you would be choosing and on the type of Alaska vacation rental that you would be getting.
Fishing is also one of the best activities that tourists can do when in Alaska. The state offers 21 species of sport fish in its lakes, streams and oceans including five types of wild Pacific salmon, 15-pound rainbow trout and halibut as big as barn doors. You can either just check in your preferred Alaska vacation rental home, buy a license and head to a stream or lake with your fishing gear or you can choose to go for day-long boat charter or a week-long fly-in remote backcountry adventure where you can fish and look for bears.
Some of the other activities that would surely be a delight to any traveler include dog-sled rides, hiking, gold-panning and watching the natural light show of the north, the Aurora borealis.
Alaska Vacation Rentals: The Best Way to Spend Your Holiday in Alaska
Alaska is truly a dream destination for individuals who are looking for a little bit of everything in a slightly different setting. If you have grown weary of going to sunny and warm vacation spots, then you might want to consider going to Alaska, renting an Alaska vacation home and enjoy the sights to see and activities to do while spending a memorable time with your loved ones. To help you choose a vacation rental home in Alaska, make sure to go through our listings of Fairbanks vacations rentals, Sitka vacation rentals and Anchorage vacation cottages.