Campgrounds and RVing in Alaska! - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Auburn War Eagle · RV-Dreams Family Member

Campgrounds and RVing in Alaska!

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

For Alaska, northern British Columbia and Yukon you have the wrong campgrond guide. The one to get is Traveler's Guide to Alaska Camping by Mike and Terri Church, here is their website http://www.rollinghomes.com/Alaska%20Book.htm.

The book will spoil you.

We went to Alaska last summer and made reservations in advance around July 4th, since it is a popular time for the locals, and by Denali and Fairbanks. Mostly we just drove up and asked or called in advance when we had cell phone coverage (Cingular and Cellular One are the best in Alaska, nothing U.S. will work in Yukon). We did not have problems except that one campground was closed and we had to go on about 20 miles to another.

We went on our own and I recommend not taking a caravan. The caravans would drive bad roads in the rain, they would drive too far in a day (to keep your RV in good shape you need to slow down and that might mean 20mph in some places), and they ended too far south to go back to something you wanted to see more of. Going up with a group of friends with the agreement that once there you might not be together all the time was a popular way to go and seemed to work for many.

There are long stretches of lonely road, that is where the scenery and wildlife were best. I recommend having a camera with fast startup to catch the wildlife while traveling, mine was too slow.

-- Edited by bjoyce at 22:07, 2007-01-27

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

Anywhere you see a lot of RVs camping for the night outside a campground means they are saving money and not that the campgrounds are full. In many areas in the lower 48 the Wal-Mart parking lot might have more overnighters than the campgrounds in town.
Since the summer temperatures are reasonable and there is alot of daylight, dry camping in Alaska in the summer works well. Solar panels actually work quite well when the sun shines, you get about 60% of your solar maximum for many, many hours. The locals rarely use campgrounds, they seem to like to dry camp.

InflatableBoats4Less · RV-Dreams Community Member

Bill's advice is right on the nose. We visited Alaska this last summer for two months without campground reservations. We met a couple in Prince George early in our journey who had reservations for every night of their 4 month trip. We kept crossing paths(not uncommon in a land with few roads) with with them for the next two weeks across BC and then lost track in Whitehorse...the first point you have a choice of going north or west in over 800 miles...!
A month later we saw them again on a ocean side walkway in the Seward City Park campground, a gem we both had discovered. We were curious if they were able to stay on schedule and found out they cancelled all their reservations early in their journey when it was obvious that there were glorious cities where they wanted to linger and dismal stopovers it was best to take a pass.
We had a faboulous unscripted Alaska Journey armed with the Church's guide book Bill mentioned; Milepost; and a laptop computer for research and cell phone to call ahead to check the lay of the land. We also bought a coupon book that offered two for one coupons for a variety of "must do" attractions across Alaska...a "must have!"

-- Edited by InflatableBoats4Less at 07:07, 2007-01-30