🤔 ALASKA - When to Go ... and When to LEAVE! 😳

hey guys we are Sean and Christie Michael of the world-famous long long honeymoon blog today we have a really fun topic what else Alaska the people have spoken you want more Alaska content we're going to give you more Alaska content and today we're going to answer a very very important question and that concerns what time of year we went to Alaska and what time of year you should go to Alaska so this is an all-time late start for us leaving at about 9:00 p.m. on whatever it is July July 21st I'm kind of stressed because I don't know it just seems like there's a thousand one things to pack and nail down before you leave we finally got it done I guess we're finally on the road we left the deep south our home on July 21st and the year was 2012 I don't think the Year really matters frankly because the broad parameters of this journey are not going to change much from year to year but the time of year is crucially important we were leaving very late in the season leaving on July 21st when we left our home it was scorching hot driving across Missouri we reached temperatures of above 115 degrees on the highway and throughout the course of our journey by the way we encountered temperatures as low as probably 14 degrees in Canada or come back down from Alaska so we really had to pack for the gamut we had to pack for hot hot summer weather and also for icy cold winter weather yeah and that's something that I think a lot of people don't realize with Alaska when you're there in the summertime don't expect summertime weather you know it's it's chilly light fall type of weather you know where you're going need long sleeves you're going to need a jacket at nighttime you're really going to need a jacket because you know it can get down in the mid 30s at night in the middle of summer so just remember that do some good research on you know typical temperatures before you start your packing so we left on July 21st and we took a rather leisurely pace getting to the border of Alaska we did not really rush and I believe it took us about 30 days to arrive at the border from Alabama right yes because we didn't really want to rush across British Columbia and the Yukon Territory I think we took about eleven days on the Alaska Highway the weather was very nice going on as we got farther and farther north of course temperatures cooled we were still catching some long days I mean daylight would linger to 10:30 or 11 o'clock at night and the mosquitoes were dying off mosquitoes can be really tenacious in like the Yukon Territory and Alaska I think the last place we really encountered mosquitoes was liard hot springs yeah further north than that I don't really recall seeing many mosquitoes I really lost a lot of blood and liard hot spring yeah it was bad it was pretty bad then but you know once we got past there I think we were pretty good so when we arrived in Alaska we're talking about third week of August from a weather standpoint the timing was just about perfect gorgeous rainy season had not yet begun and the leaves were beginning to turn autumn colors if you look at a map of Alaska you'll see there's sort of a logical loop I mean you're driving up from kind of a south east of course and we felt it was best for our itinerary to start going up to Fairbanks yeah so we win you know as far north as we could almost in the first day or so that we were in Alaska we spent a night in Tok and then from Tok we booked it on up to Fairbanks you know at the time we were in Alaska we really stayed in a huge variety of campgrounds we stayed at privately-owned full hookup campgrounds we stayed in city parks we Boone docked in turnouts and just various places we actually Boone docked in the Wasilla Walmart parking lot one night it was actually a very nice Walmart yeah it was one thing I'll say about the time of year that we went as well is that we missed the crowds there were still people there there was still activity but it wasn't just swarmed with people and we had several campgrounds that we stayed at and said oh if you'd been here three weeks ago you wouldn't have gotten a spot you know right so I was happy to hear that we missed those sorts of throngs of people just because you know we don't make reservations for in advance when we went through Denali now if you've never been to Denali National Park you should know you can't really drive your own vehicle deep into the park you have to take a bus yeah I think you can only go about the first 12 or 15 miles Denali is basically one long road back into the park so you yelling there's only one way and it went way out so there's one last campground I think maybe around mile 12 or 15 which stays completely booked it was completely packed when we were there so we were not able to get in there so we stayed at a private campground outside the park but you have to take a bus this time you guys take the prettiest time of the year as you can see some of these popper bushes and other brush around this changing of the colors different metals have a gorgeous trip nothing else the weather was perfect you know because you're when you take those buses you know they're kind of open-air buses you know it's nice that we weren't sweltering in there we could put our windows down and not worry about bugs because it was later in the season so that was nice if you don't camp in the backcountry you know Denali can can wipe you out because you basically get on your bus and we didn't even get all the way to the end of the road we only went to like the the furthest visitor center which i think is like mile 70 or something like that and that trip round trip was like 9 hours I think right so that's a pretty long day so Denali can definitely take a lot out of you just from riding on the bus I can't so after we left Denali we headed south into the Wasilla slash Palmer area which is really just outside of Anchorage so it was a good place to be in fact in Palmer we rendezvous with an Airstream Caravan and had a lot of fun hanging out with fellow air streamers who were on the wali bomb Caravan Club the BBC see I carry van to Alaska and back and so we had a great time hanging out with those guys for a few days yeah I think there were about 30 rigs or so so that was really cool to be just in this campground full of air streams and to see how they coordinate their big rallies and get everybody going at the same time it's really interesting this is what a lot of our streamers do in the last guy takes care of all your problems that's right olives are for catching salmon and in the Palmer Wasilla area you had a lot of amenities I mean there were some nice restaurants around there there were obviously all the big-box stores so if you wanted to stock up on supplies and or like do some maintenance get things fixed it was a good place to do that and we could easily shoot over to Anchorage for for dinner or just date ribs you we also happen to be in Palmer during the Alaska State Fair and that's a really great State Fair if you get a chance to go they have lots of great rides the food is amazing they have so many vendors and then of course they have the livestock and all that good stuff so if you get a chance to coincide with the Alaska State Fair that was a real treat today Fair in Alaska's it's kind of a big deal it's like the social thing to do like everybody that lives around there that's you know they look forward to it for months and they go almost every day yeah I mean it's a lot of fun it's a real treat I mean it's a great way to sample a lot of different tastes of Alaska but they had so many different types of food there from different countries that I was really impressed so we had a great time at the Alaska State Fair and then from Anchorage winded up heading south we stopped in Soldotna for a night and saw you know there's a river there in Soldotna I think it's is it the Kenai River and they have a lot of salmon fishing there so we stopped and saw that and then we drove on down we go to Homer Indiana just 3,000 miles away Homer Ohio 3083 miles are what you say Homer last 160 pounds you kind of got to go to homer and go out to the homer spit you know that's where all of the fishing boats leave if you've ever watched The Deadliest Catch yeah I think the Time Bandit is the ship that is docked in Homer so they sell like the t-shirts and everything there and he was out to sea when we were there but it's definitely kind of touristy but you kind of got going it's an interesting place and we went of course to the Salty Dog saloon I would recommend going there because it's this kind of tiny hole in the wall weird building I would recommend going there because they have beer so yes they do happy any places beer is pretty cool Seward has some incredible RV camping that is waterfront and it's provided by the city the story as I understand it is that 40 or 50 years ago there was a bad earthquake in the town and it left that ground by the water kind of unstable and they don't really want to build permanent structures there but it's a perfect place for RVs to park now it's no hookup it was cheap it was cheap because we were waterfront we literally backed up and there was a little Shore rocky shore and the water was right there you could lay in bed and watch the waves crash on the shore and say the ships come in and it was beautiful and they had a really great aquarium there it was just next to the campground on the waterfront there and we saw some really cool you know sea lions and all that good stuff so it was a cool little aquarium at this point the weather is still holding up pretty good it was drizzling a little bit but not not bad I mean light rain a couple of days the weather's kind of gray and rainy but they say that you see more marine life on a rainy day right yeah the guy at the visitor center said that actually rainy days are even better because apparently it turns up the water and so the seal I can't see very clearly underneath the water they can't see their food very clearly so apparently they come up to the surface more frequently than if it was a sunny day we'll see sure not I don't know you know we're talking about this point in our journey we were in I guess September kind of in the in the middle of September we went to Valdez and that's when things started to turn for the worse because the weather started becoming more and more colder and Rainier as well one of the Valdez and in Valdez we really got swamped well we are in a Valdez we pulled up stakes and we're making an unplanned departure about 5:30 p.m. just made a supply run because this is probably the last real grocery store we're going to see for I don't know for a long time probably until we get down to Whitehorse in the Yukon truthfully the weekend's been kind of a washout we're going to take a boat tour today we got this instead we're going to take a helicopter tour tomorrow but I think the weather's not going to allow that so we're going to head up and just sort of set our sights on Glenallen and we're kind of beginning the exit of this portion of Alaska anyway when we originally set out on this trip some two months ago my fear was the weather and the roads roads turned out to be a little better than expected as did overall the weather the weather overall has been quite good if you look at it over the course of one full month I would say over half our time here we had very good weather as in picture-perfect 70 degrees and sunny but probably a third of the time we had piss-poor weather which is kind of like this no you know I believe that the month of July was like this for the entire month so it's not a big surprise one thing about Alaska that's really unusual is the window of opportunity with the good weather and this trip has really clarified that in my mind I mean you know you've got that summer season and once it's gone it's gone and when the weather turns rough it can turn really rough we got a phone call from our campground and they warned us that we should leave town tonight because apparently flooding is quite common along the highway here and there's really only one Road in and out of town and if that road washes out you are out of luck this weekend already we've probably had 7 to 9 inches of rain and incidentally over the next couple of days we're supposed to have hurricane-force winds parking like winds up to I think 120 miles per hour we've been in Alaska for more than one month so I think we've gotten a good taste of what we came here for Alaska is such a massive state you can't see it all in one trip you know what we've done is cherry-pick experiences throughout the state and I feel we've gotten a really good overview of what the state has to offer this right here was barely even there we came through 2 days ago and this waterfall right here was just kind of a dinky little trinkle it's ridiculous look at this at this point we're talking about it's late September I suppose pretty late and quite frankly at this point we have stayed too long I mean well too long the most RV travelers would not even consider being up there at this point and so we really felt like we were kind of hightailing it South as the saying goes because we were running away from the weather and the other factor we were concerned about was the requirement for snow chains on our tires we did not have change for our tires and so we wanted to get far enough south so that wouldn't be a concern yeah I think on the Alaska Highway you're required to have snow chains after the first week of October maybe and so we were approaching that deadline and we did not want to have to buy snow chains we didn't want to be in that situation another issue you're going to have as you head south if you linger that late in the season is some of the campgrounds are going to be closed because as October approaches a lot of those campgrounds start shutting down if they haven't already shut down yeah when we came back through Tok on our way south all the campgrounds in town had already closed I mean there were a couple of times when we were you know having to hunt to find an available dump station because the campgrounds were closed and we simply couldn't find a place to empty our tanks so that's just something you need to be prepared for I think towards the end of September you've probably already lingered too long but August and early September were a beautiful weeks I mean really those were sort of like the sweet spot perhaps for us that year from a weather standpoint and a crowd and traffic stamp yeah for sure we definitely miss the crowds so that is a brief overview or perhaps not so brief of when to take your trip to Alaska I'm sure it varies just a bit from year to year depending upon you know whatever weather is happening that year but for us it worked out very well to a I have mid to late August and to hit that sweet spot and we stayed up there for good six weeks at least yeah I think if you arrived probably the first of August and stay dogus tin the first two weeks of September that would be like the perfect display / sweet spot because then when you left in mid-september you know you wouldn't have a problem finding campgrounds or dump stations you know when you're heading south so if you have taken your RV to Alaska I would like to ask a favor of you why don't you comment post a comment beneath this video and share your opinion for when you think the best time is to go yeah because we've even encountered some people that go in May and they say well that's really too early because there's still snow on the ground in some places it's interesting to ask around and sort of get opinions from people that have been there at different times of the year and what they thought about it I think we were definitely very late to the game but we're always late so that's nothing that's okay so anyway that's our chat about timing your trip to Alaska as always thanks for tuning in guys if you're new here please subscribe to our channel because subscriptions make us very happy and it's just good karma isn't it it is it's free it is free you guys push the little button until next time safe travels happy camping and lo lo ho if you liked the video give it a thumbs up you disliked it give it a thumbs down feel free to leave a comment and of course don't forget to subscribe be shy what a sweet little baby she is he's such a sweet baby girl you see Shauna with him oh he's he Shawn yeah sama sweet girl

Channel: Long Long Honeymoon

Views: 792,712

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Id: vw4unbfJhYo

Length: 20min 35sec (1235 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 17 2016