Must-see attractions in Alaska

  • Four people walking on Mendenhall Glacier, Alaska, USA

    Mendenhall Glacier

    Juneau

    Going to Juneau and not seeing the Mendenhall is like visiting Rome and skipping the Colosseum. The most famous of Juneau’s ice floes, and the city’s most…

  • An Alaskan tundra wolf leaps through the blowing snow near the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as the Brooks Range looms in the background; Shutterstock ID 378979717; purchase_order: 65050; job: ; client: ; other:
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    Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

    Alaska

    The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a 30,625-sq-mile wilderness in Alaska’s northeast corner, straddling the eastern Brooks Range from the treeless…

  • Part of Tongass National Forest, Mendenhall Glacier and Lake are approximately 12 miles from downtown Juneau, Alaska.

    Tongass National Forest

    Southeast Alaska

    Welcome to the largest national forest in the US, a tract of land almost the size of Ireland and significantly larger than adjacent Wrangell-St Elias…

  • Alaska, Prince William Sound, Sea kayakers, Columbia Bay, Columbia Glacier, Icebergs, Brash Ice,

    Columbia Glacier

    Valdez

    This is the star glacial attraction in Prince William Sound – a large sea inlet named by British colonizers after a young English prince in the eighteenth…

  • Sunrise at Hubbard Glacier with mountain in Alaska.

    Hubbard Glacier

    Southeast Alaska

    Just 30 miles north of Yakutat is Hubbard Glacier, the largest tidewater glacier in North America. The 8-mile-wide frozen behemoth is easily Alaska’s most…

  • Sitka National Historical Park

    Sitka

    This mystical juxtaposition of tall trees and totems is Alaska’s smallest national park and the site where the Tlingits were defeated by the Russians in…

  • Driving in Denali National Park, grizzly bear walking down the road in the late evening when Mount McKinley was in full view.

    Denali National Park & Preserve

    The Interior

    In our collective consciousness, Alaska represents the concept of the raw wilderness. But that untamed perception can be as much a deterrent as a draw…

  • Anchorage Museum

    Anchorage Museum

    Anchorage

    This world-class facility is Anchorage’s cultural jewel. The West Wing, a four-story, shimmering, mirrored facade, adds 80,000 sq ft to what was already…

  • Blue ice fall on Matanuska Glacier
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    Matanuska Glacier

    The Interior

    Some 18,000 years ago this glacier covered the entire area where the city of Palmer sits today. It must have appeared a supernatural force back then,…

  • Tlingit People & Whale Bones

    Alaska Native Heritage Center

    Anchorage

    If you can't travel to the Bush region to experience Native Alaska culture firsthand, visit this 26-acre center and see how humans survived – and thrived …

  • Alaska Sealife Center in Seward.

    Alaska Sealife Center

    Seward

    A fitting legacy of the Exxon Valdez oil-spill settlement, this $56-million marine research center is more than just one of Alaska’s finest attractions…

  • Landscape in Fort Abercrombie State Historical Park.

    Fort Abercrombie State Historical Park

    Kodiak Island

    This military fort, 4.5 miles northeast of Kodiak, off Monashka Bay Rd, was built by the US Army during WWII to defend against a Japanese invasion that…

  • USA, Alaska, Fairbanks, University of Alaska, Museum of the North

    University of Alaska Museum of the North

    Fairbanks

    In an architecturally abstract, igloo- and aurora-inspired edifice sits one of Alaska’s finest museums, with artifact-rich exhibits on the geology,…

  • Ruins of the 100-year-old concentration mill at the historic Kennecott Copper Mine.

    Concentration Mill & Leaching Plant

    The Interior

    Like a rickety fantasy hatched out of a lunatic's dream, this 14-story building once processed the copper mined out of the surrounding mountains. You can…

  • Interior displays at the Alaska Islands and Oceans Visitor Center.

    Alaska Islands & Ocean Visitor Center

    Homer

    More a research facility and museum than a visitor center, this impressive place has numerous cool interactive exhibits. The best is a room that’s a…

  • Mukluk Land

    The Interior

    It's hard to miss Mukluk Land. The entrance, after all, is marked by a giant red boot. But more importantly: you shouldn't miss Mukluk Land. Is it a theme…

  • Pratt Museum

    Homer

    There’s lots of local art and Alaska Native artifacts, but a more impressive feature is the interactive displays on the area’s wildlife, designed to…

  • Saxman Native Village & Totem Park

    Ketchikan

    On South Tongass Hwy, 2.5 miles south of Ketchikan, is this incorporated Tlingit village of 475 residents. It's best known for Saxman Totem Park, which…

  • Russian Bishop's House

    Sitka

    East of downtown along Lincoln St, the Russian Bishop’s House is the oldest intact Russian building in Sitka. Built in 1843 by Finnish carpenters out of…

  • Wrangell Museum

    Southeast Alaska

    This impressive museum is what the colorful history and characters of Wrangell deserve. As you stroll through the many rooms, an audio narration…

  • Valdez Museum

    Valdez

    This lovingly curated museum includes an ornate, steam-powered antique fire engine, a 19th-century saloon bar and the ceremonial first barrel of oil to…

  • Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository

    Kodiak Island

    The Alutiiqs (not to be confused with the Aleuts) are the subject of this brilliant Alaska Native museum. They were the original inhabitants of the Kodiak…

  • Totem Heritage Center

    Ketchikan

    For a crash course in Southeast Alaska's impressive totem art look no further than the Totem Heritage Center, where old poles brought from deserted…

  • Museum of the Aleutians

    Aleutian Islands

    This small but impressive museum is one of the best native cultural centers in Alaska. It relives the Aleutian story from prehistory through the Russian…

  • Aleutian WWII National Historic Area

    Aleutian Islands

    In 1996 Congress created this 134-acre national historic area to commemorate the bloody events of WWII that took place on the Aleutian Islands. Most of…

  • DENALI NATIONAL PARK, ALASKA, USA - JUNE 9 2013: Mt McKinley on a clear day on June 9 2013 in Alaska.  Mt McKinley is the highest mountain in North America and on August 28 2015 was renamed to Denali.
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    Denali

    Denali National Park & Preserve

    What makes 20,310ft Denali (formerly Mt McKinley) one of the world’s great scenic mountains is the sheer independent rise of its bulk. Denali begins at a…

  • Atigun Pass

    Alaska

    At 4739ft, the Atigun Pass is the only road pass through the Brooks Range. We'd call it 'dramatic,' but that's sort of like calling the Sahara sandy; the…

  • The Homer Spit.

    Homer Spit

    Homer

    Generally known as ‘the Spit,’ this long needle of land – a 4.5-mile sandbar stretching into Kachemak Bay – is viewed by some folks as the most fun…

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Fairview Inn, Talkeetna, Alaska

    Fairview Inn

    Talkeetna

    Though not an official museum, the Fairview Inn might as well be. Founded in 1923 to serve as the overnight stop between Seward and Fairbanks on the newly…

  • Old pump station at the beach in the Treadwell mine historic park in Juneau, Alaska.

    Treadwell Mine Historical Trail

    Juneau

    It's hard to envisage today, but the Treadwell mine on Douglas Island was once the largest gold mine in the world, set up like a minitown with its own…

  • A group of grizzly bears fishing for salmon at Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park.

    Katmai National Park & Preserve

    Southwest Alaska

    Sure, Katmai National Park & Preserve encompasses four million acres of rippling coastline, volcanic landscapes and mountain-fringed lakes, but the brown…

  • Hikers on the trail to Gold Cord Lake in Independence Mine State Historical Park at Hatcher Pass, Alaska June 2011. The half-mile trail leads to an alpine lake above the historic gold mine near Hatcher Pass.

    Independence Mine State Historical Park

    Anchorage Region

    The main attraction of Hatcher Pass is 272-acre Independence Mine State Historical Park, a huge, abandoned gold mine sprawled out in an alpine valley. The…

  • Juneau Alaska from Mt. Roberts with tramway.; Shutterstock ID 37133203; Your name (First / Last): Alexander Howard; GL account no.: 65050; Netsuite department name: Online Editorial; Full Product or Project name including edition: Destination Next Pages

    Mt Roberts Tramway

    Juneau

    As far as cable cars go, this tramway is rather expensive for a five-minute ride. But from a marketing point of view its location couldn’t be better. It…

  • Lake on Kennicott glacier, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska

    Kennicott Glacier

    The Interior

    ‘Oh no, they destroyed this valley!’ If you’re like 99% of visitors, that’s exactly what you’ll think as you reach Kennecott and look across the…

  • St. Michael's Cathedral, Sitka, Alaska.

    St Michael's Cathedral

    Sitka

    Built between 1844 and 1848, this church stood for more than 100 years as Alaska’s finest Russian Orthodox cathedral. When a fire destroyed it in 1966,…

  • Salmon Glacier.

    Salmon Glacier

    Southeast Alaska

    Twenty miles north of Hyder and back inside Canada lies the fifth-largest glacier in Canada (and the largest in the world accessible by road). The old…