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I paid only $8/night for a dorm room at the Loki Hostel in Cuzco, Peru. Alaska is definitely much more expensive.

There are hostels in all three locations. You might find them listed under http://www.hostelbookers.com The national park in Skagway is the trail that the gold miners took to Dawson City, but you will not have the equipment or time to hike it. Skagway has preserved the frontier buildings of the Gold Rush Era and its theater shows plays depicting the scoundrals who preyed on the naive miners. There is an old train to take tourists up a steep pass to Fraser, British Columbia, to see another route that the miners trekked.

In Juneau, there is Mendenhall Lake and the visitors center for the Glacier. I have read that there is access to the glacier probably from in back of the visitors center. There is river rafting on Mendenhall River. About 15 miles north of downtown Juneau is a St. Theresa's Catholic Retreat with chapel open to the public -- it is on a promontory into the bay and I saw a breaching whale from that beach. There is a salmon fish hatchery.

In Sitka, there is a lot of Russian history of when they claimed Alaska as their territory. There is a Raptor Rehabilitation Center. There is a native Indian village with totem poles. You may see migrating salmon swimming upstream.

It takes about 6 hours for the ferry ride each way from Juneau to Sitka. It takes about 8 hours each way for the ferry ride from Juneau to Skagway. I assume that you are flying into Juneau because otherwise, you would need to take a ferry there.

Edited by: trekker502

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Since I will be in Juneau for those 2 weeks due to work, it sounds like it'll be more rewarding for me to stay in Alaska than to fly back to the continental USA. Good to hear!

Is it possible to rent camping/hiking equipment for the National Parks while in Alaska, for a reasonable price? If I decide to spring for a guided tour, would they be able to provide equipment for a reasonable price?

2 weeks for about $800 from Juneau to Juneau... reasonable?

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Juneau does have several sporting goods stores downtown, but I don't know about rentals. The Mendenhall Valley strip mall does not have anything, unless things have changed since I was last there. The Juneau campus of the University of Alaska is in Mendenhall Valley. There is a nice marina nearby where you may take a boat tour. There is a large campground next to Mendenhall Lake and a small campground near (one mile north) the Juneau ferry dock.

There is a campground at the beginning of the Chilkoot Trail in Dyea (you take a taxi from Skagway to Dyea about 10 miles) which was the original Yukon Gold Rush route to Dawson City -- the national park office in Skagway will give you a permit and map. I did not take the White Pass Railroad train up to Fraser, but I did drive that road to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and the Alaska-Canada Highway to Anchorage.

There are campgrounds and tourist cabins alongside Excursion Inlet, Tongass National Forest, across the Inlet from Glacier Bay National Park. (I spent 3 summer seasons working there at the huge salmon processing center, which has changed ownership.) I think that I have read that nearby Gustavus Island has a campground.

I stayed in an RV campground in Skagway, but it may have allowed tents also. I only took a tour at dawn of Sitka while my ferry stopped for one hour, so I did not see the Tlingit Indian village with totem poles or campgrounds. But, I did see the Russian Orthodox cathedral, the Archbishop's home, the Russian leader's home, the native Alaska Indian boarding school, and the Raptor Rehabilitation Center plus migrating salmon in a stream.

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Hi everyone,

just want to thanks everyone for your help. I am finally doing a different trip (I am keeping Alaska for some other time, reasons like being solo made it too expensive for the kind of trip I wanted to do).

Instead I am doing Kansas City-St Louis- Nashville- Memphis- New Orleans trip.

Any advise will be great!
Have a great day!

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Hi,
I would like to go to Alaska this summer and hoping to find someone to go with... Does anyone know of a site where they can match travel partners?

Thanks.

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It is easy to find travel companions when you stay in one of the hostels in Anchorage, or elsewhere. http://www.AlaskaHostels.com gives the web page for the Fairbanks hostel plus the web addresses of several other hostels in Anchorage and Denali, and elsewhere. I preferred Spenard Hostel, which is 5 minutes taxi ride from the International Airport and near the bus line to downtown. It has a garden with a BBQ and bike rentals and one block from access to the main bicycle trails throughout Anchorage.