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There are 8 national parks in Alaska, of which 3 are road accessible and the other 5 you need to utilize a boat or plane to access. Each park offers different reasons to visit them along with unique logistics to make the most of your time inside the national parks. As tour operators and an Alaska travel experts, we offer guided tours in 3 of the national parks including the 2 primary locations of Kenai Fjords National Park and Lake Clark National Park. We also offer several tours in Denali National Park & Preserve if you are traveling past the Kenai Peninsula for your vacation.

 

There are 3 parks in Alaska that you can drive to that provide some of the most scenic drives in Alaska. They are still very remote, have wonderful wildlife viewing opportunities, and provide plenty of recreating to do. These national parks allow you to use a rental car and travel to them, stay in a town nearby, and enjoy Alaska outdoors to the fullest potential.

 

Denali National Park & Preserve spans across 6.1 million acres. Some towns and villages nearby include Healy, Cantwell, Denali Park/Canyon, Talkeetna, Kantishna, & Fairbanks. This park also has Denali state park which butts up against it. People can take a bus tour when in the park for wildlife and scenery viewing, enjoy neighboring towns, and enjoy what we Alaskan’s call this area of the state big open country, known for the Denali mountain range, with Mount McKinley towering over any other mountain at 20,310 feet! There are options to get to this park by train from Anchorage or drive to it with your rental car. There are some bigger resorts at the base of the park that companies like Princess Lodge LLC owns. We recommend a flight seeing tour of Denali and have a partner out of Talkeetna for this.

 

Kenai Fjords National Park is a smaller park with around 0.7 million (700,000 acres), but let me assure you that is still a massive area to explore. Seward is the gateway to this national park but people can also access it from any town in the Kenai Peninsula or the Anchorage area with a day trip to Seward. Most of this park is accessed by hiking, boat tours, kayaking, or flight seeing. Our whale/glacier/wildlife cruise goes out of Seward and is in the park during the tour. This is one of the highest effort to reward national parks in the state with easy access and many tour options. There are also many different bird species (including puffin), mountain goats, black bear, bald eagles, and a huge variety of ocean mammals from sea lions to whales.

 

Wrangell-St. Elias National & Preserve is the largest park in the United States, spanning more then 13.2 million acres. The towns that give you the best access to the park are Copper Center, Chitina, McCarthy, Kennecott. When I think of this national park driving the McCarthy road for 60 miles on unpaved gravel and the stories of people changing tires as they drive this road. Now it is a stunning drive and the old mining towns of McCarthy and Kennicott definitely have the old town vibes of Alaska. There are guided tours available there as well as some lodging options. You get to see a fraction of the park on these tours because it is so massive.

 

There are 5 parks that you can only access from airplane or boat, which are considered remote parks to visit. These are spread out all around the state and offer great opportunities to see Alaska in the raw, require more effort & time to get to them, and the opportunity to have more solitude in some of the most remote wilderness Alaska offers.

 

Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve is roughly 3.3 million acres big. Some of the closest towns to this park are Juneau, Haines, Skagway. This is located in Southeast Alaska and you would visit this park if you were in this part of the state, which isn’t accessible from Anchorage unless you take a commercial flight. Lots of ocean related transportation and tours here as you see mountains coming out of the ocean, plenty of wildlife and ocean mammals (including whales).

 

Katmai National Park & Preserve is around 4.1 million acres in size. The towns that people access this park with are King Salmon, Naknek, Kodiak. This park is best known for it’s bear viewing at Brooks Falls as well as world class fishing at remote lodges throughout the park including Brooks, Nanak, Kulik, and American rivers. Typically you would take a commercial flight from Anchorage to King Salmon and then get with your tour operator once you land. You need to have a “package” booked there or transportation if you are going to do anything on your own.

 

Lake Clark National Park & Preserve is approximately 2.6 million acres of land. The towns that give you the best access are Kenai, Nikiski, Port Alsworth, Illiamna, & Homer. This national park is where one of our fly in bear viewing trips gets to experience when you book the Crescent Lake destination. This park is filled with wildlife like moose & bears to name a few! It has wonderful views on the flight over showcasing glaciers, mountains, river valleys, some volcanos. You can do this trip in a day with a fly in service and have a wonderful experience at a reasonable price from mid July to mid September. You could also spend a few days there at a remote lodge but don’t be surprised at the price tag attached.

 

Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve is one of the largest parks and sits at roughly 8.4 million acres. The towns that are closest to this park are Bettles/Evansville, Coldfoot, & Wiseman. This park is for people who really want to get far into the wilderness, have a week or more to dedicate to this area, interested in a backpacking trip, and looking for a cultural experience with Nunamiut Eskimos & Athbascan people. Just like all Alaska’s National Parks it has stunning scenery, wildlife viewing, and plenty of mountains & rivers.

 

Kobuk Valley National Park is about 1.7 million acres in size. The towns or villages that give you the best access are Kotzebue, Ambler, Kabuki, & Shungnak. This is one of the least common national parks for non Alaskan’s to visit. A few highlights of this park are the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, the Onion Portage, the Kobuk river, and an active zone for the migration of the Western Arctic Caribou herd. This area has so much history with Alaska Natives preserving their way of life. One of our close college friends lived in Kobuk and to this day states it was one of his favorite areas for wildlife, recreating, hunting, and fishing.

 

When it comes down to deciding which of the Alaska National Parks to visit it’s important to look at the following variables: How much time you have, what kind of experience do you want, what are your vacation goals, how accessible is the land, how much money do you want to spend, and how does the geographic location of the park fit into the rest of your trip plans.

The national parks that you can drive to are great because they allow you to be in awesome wilderness while having great accessibility at a reasonable price. The national parks that you have to fly or boat to definitely take more time and cost more money to visit. If you want to find out more about Alaska National parks visit https://www.nps.gov/state/ak/index.htm.