Alaska Travel Guide

Alaska is scale on a different order — glaciers calving into fjords, the Inside Passage threading through temperate rainforest, and wilderness that starts at the edge of its few small cities. It's also, quietly, a serious cold-water diving destination for the specific kind of diver who wants glacier ice and kelp forest rather than coral.

Ted Stevens Anchorage International is the main hub for the state. The Inside Passage — the southeast coastal route through Juneau and the smaller port towns — is typically reached by ferry or cruise rather than road.

Summer (June–August) brings the midnight sun, the best wildlife viewing, and the salmon runs that pull bears to the rivers. Winter (roughly September–March) is dark and cold but opens up the aurora season.

July is the sweet spot — salmon runs are underway, brown bears are actively fishing at spots like Katmai, and the long daylight hours stretch the day.

Wild salmon and halibut are the everyday staples, king crab is the splurge, reindeer sausage shows up on breakfast menus, and sourdough bread carries a real gold-rush-era history in the state.

Brown and grizzly bears fishing salmon runs at Katmai are the headline encounter, alongside humpback whales and orcas working the same coastal waters, sea otters floating in the kelp, bald eagles gathering in the hundreds where the salmon run, and puffins nesting on the coastal cliffs.

This is genuine drysuit diving — cold, current-driven water rewarding divers willing to suit up for it. Expect giant Pacific octopus, dense kelp forests, glacier-carved fjord walls, and WWII-era wrecks in Prince William Sound, all with a solitude that's hard to find in warmer, more crowded dive destinations.