How to Spend 7 Amazing Days in Alaska This Winter!
Alaskan winters are COLD. Like, really cold. The weather can range anywhere from 20 degrees to -40 degrees and may change drastically throughout your trip! Alaska is not the destination to go to without some serious trip planning, at least if you want to experience everything Alaska has to offer! Alaska is one of those places where if you plan right, you can see everything we did or more in one visit. We recommend at least a week to see everything (we went for 8 days).
We broke it down day by day and are going to give you all the essential information to make your winter trip to Alaska amazing!
Our Trip Duration: 8 Days in November 2021
First, and my favorite part: PACKING!
Here is a packing list of everything
you need to survive the Alaskan cold!
shop our amazon
for our exact recommendations!
Extras: Hand and Toe warmers, bathing suit for hot springs, pajamas, warm blanket
How much or how little of all of these are totally up to you and how minimally you like to travel! My tip would be to find an airbnb that has a washer and dryer and invest in some really good quality thermals and socks! (We also always doubled up on socks and used toe warmers everyday!)
How much should you expect to spend?
This is the cost breakdown between Paulie and I, his cousin and her boyfriend who went on the trip with us! We are always looking to save money and use it towards another trip. Obviously there are a lot of variables here, and you could end up spending significantly more (or less) depending on how you like to travel or how many excursions you want to do!
TIP: We highly recommend planning trips with friends or family members, even the ones who you wouldn't normally think would go! We have had such fun experiences with unexpected friends and family joining us on trips and we extend the invite every time we travel! BONUS: It's also a great way to split the costs between everyone and have a budget friendly destination vacation!!
Flights: $223
Flight Insurance: $22
Airbnb Rental: $855/ $214pp
Turo Car Rental: $461/ $115
Excursions: Reindeer Ranch $30
Excursion: LARS Fairbanks: $15
Excursion: Dog Sledding $68
Excursion: Hot Springs & Ice Caves $30
Food $150
Gas (approx. 3.50/gal) $43
Extras (face mask for cold, souvenirs, lyft) $75
TOTAL: $1,000 EACH
In total we spent about $1,000 each, we spent a lot of time doing free things in the area to bring our costs down, and to be honest there really was not a whole lot of touristy things to go spend money on. Alaska is referred to as “The Last Frontier” and for good reason, most of the activities for you to do are outdoors and in nature! If you are looking for a place to reset, this is the spot! Certainly away from people and reconnecting with nature in a beautiful environment.
Getting there: FROM NEW YORK CITY
Friend to drive us to the airport (FREE)
Flight from JFK to Seattle 5hr 41min
Layover 2.5 hours
Seattle to Anchorage 3hr 50min
Layover 4 hours
Anchorage to Fairbanks 41min
DAY ONE
Arrive in Fairbanks
Pick up rental car, we used Turo!
There are MUCH cheaper options in this area using this app and we had such a great experience! Remember when picking up the car its extremely cold and the keyfobs don't work right away, be prepared to stand in the cold while you warm it up and don't try to open the door before or you'll set off the car alarm like we did and have to listen to it until we could get the key fob warmed up!
Breakfast: The Cookie Jar (best rated breakfast spot in fairbanks, lives up to the hype)
Highly recommend the cinnamon buns, hot chocolate and a skillet
Head to Airbnb to check in (we had an early check in allowed)
Morris Thompson Cultural & Visitors Center, FREE, for info and history, 8am-5pm, tons of helpful info about northern lights
Large Animal Research Station (LARS) - 12pm, $15, TIX
NAP TIME 3pm-2am
Jet lag got us and if you're coming from the east coast it will get you too! Plan a solid few hours to get some rest! The roads get dangerously icy so it's SUPER important to be awake and aware while driving!
Northern Lights 3am-5am BEST lights display we had on the entire trip!
Back to Airbnb for some Zzz’s (5am-10am)
NORTHERN LIGHTS TIPS
Some quick helpful tips for trying to spot the northern lights on your Alaska excursion!
DON'T pay for a tour if you have a rental car. Research or check out our blog post “How to see the northern lights in Alaska”. There are some incredible viewing spots in the area that you can drive to and see them. (Chena Lakes, Murphy Dome, Cleary Summit to name a few!)
Check the weather forecast! If it's a clear night you will probably see them, but cloud coverage and any snow/rain makes it impossible to view them. You can also check the https://www.gi.alaska.edu/monitors/aurora-forecast predictions website to see how active they are projected to be for that night.
We found that the sweet spot to seeing them was after midnight into the morning hours.
Pack hand and toe warmers and dress in layers! Maybe even bring a heavy blanket! Photographers, make sure you bring extra batteries, the cold drains your batteries quickly!
With all that being said, set your alarms and drive out EVERY night to try and see them, you just never know! Every night the light prediction said low activity, we saw them. And on our first night it was cloudy in town and when we drove up to Cleary Summit it was clear and the BEST show of the entire trip!
Check out our blog post: 8 TIPS TO HELP YOU FIND THE NORTHERN LIGHTS IN ALASKA!
DAY TWO
10am: Wakeup
Breakfast at : Bagels & Brew Drive In, Check out their awesome menu here!
Drive to the Town of Fox, beautiful views along the way and see Gold Dredge #8
Drive back into Fairbanks and see the Alaskan pipeline viewing point on the way
Noon: 2 Miles of hiking trails behind Creamer’s Field & Boreal Tree Forest Trail
Lunch at Thai drive through (tons of thai places in the area we went here and LOVED it)
Antler Arch in town (quick stop no more than 5 minutes)
Museum of the North University of Alaska open 10am-5:30pm $16 (double check here)
Pickup groceries at Fred Meyers (don't bother with the walmart, they had NOTHING and so expensive!)
NAP: 7pm-2am
Northern Lights: Attempted to see the lights at Olnes Pond & Cleary Summit but it was too cloudy so we missed them
DAY THREE
8:30am: wakeup, made breakfast and packed PBJ for lunch
Sunrise on the road (Sunrise is later here! It starts coming up at 9am!)
10:30am: Running Reindeer Ranch $30 per person
12pm: Eat lunch at Olnes Pond
Pioneer Park stop for 30 minutes on the way back (Not worth the stop during winter months in our opinion, everything is closed)
5pm: make dinner at airbnb and get to sleep early for Northern lights viewing
1am: wakeup Northern lights attempt at Murphy Dome (We slept right through our alarms but this was our plan!)
DAY FOUR
7am wakeup
7:30 breakfast at Jason's Donuts - this local spot is AMAZING open 6am-noon (double for special deals here!)
Drive to Denali National Park (about 3 hours from Fairbanks on icy snowy roads)
12pm Lunch in the car (we had PBJ’s)
Hike Horseshoe Lake Trail (most roads and trails are closed at the park check the NPS website for more info)
Denali Kennels near park entrance (check HERE for when they are open to public, when we went it was 1-4 on Sat & Sun)
Drive back to Fairbanks and go to Haystack Mountain (this drive is not for the faint of heart) and Cleary Summit (we faintly saw them at Cleary summit)
DAY FIVE
7am Wakeup and make breakfast
8am Drive to Castner Ice Cave (3hr drive)
VIEWS ON THE WAY ARE AMAZING don’t underestimate how many times you’ll want to stop at the pull offs!
Arrive at Castner Ice Caves 2.2 Mile Round Trip Hike (FREE)
LOCATION: South of Delta Junction, Alaska. It's located at milepost 217.3 on the Richardson Highway / About 150 miles down the Richardson Highway, just a ways past Delta Junction the road passes over a good number of creeks that feed into the Delta River. One of those is Castner Creek. At that point you just pull over, park along the highway (which is really just an ordinary 2 lane road with almost no traffic) and cross your fingers.
TIPS: There are actually 2 trails you can take, one on either side of the creek. We took the North trail in, and somehow ended up coming out on the South trail… we think at some point they connected. ALWAYS have all trails map downloaded before you go and check the comments there to see the conditions!
DAY SIX
10am: Woke up and made breakfast at airbnb
Drive to Chena Hot Springs Resort
Geothermal Renewable Energy tour (ask for Bash)
Ice Museum (skip this unless you want an overpriced apple martini or a photo op with tons of tourists- we hated this)
Chena Hot Springs (full day pass $15)
So, a few things about Chena Hot Springs. It is a resort and if you wanted to you could stay here for part of your trip to Fairbanks or the entire time, its up to you! We recommend after visiting here, if you would want to go in the hot springs more than once, an overnight would suffice. There really is NOTHING around except the resort. With that being said, also plan on only eating at the one restaurant the resort offers. One important part of their menu to highlight is that they grow their own hydroponic lettuce and tomatoes (which you can visit on the tour) which we loved! They do have tons of other pretty reasonably priced tours like northern lights with warm yurt tour etc. Their prices run around $250 a night.
After our visit at the hot springs we tried viewing the northern Lights at Chena Rec Area (no show) and tried to see them in town in Fairbanks (no show) and we went home around 3:45am.
DAY SEVEN
Lady of the Lake Hike
We skipped out on this one, we were just too cold & tired (-13 degrees out)
Creamer's Field short walk around the hikes we didn't get to
2:30pm Rods Alaskan Adventures (he is great! Offers a lot of outdoor activities like dog sledding and snowmobiling)
Dog Sledding (we used groupon $68+tip) 30min ride (that is ALL you need)
SnowMobiling Tour (we weren’t able to do this because of the lack of snow!)
(BUT - We say do one or the other, it's just SO cold even in November that the wind (or worse, snow) blowing in your face is hardly worth it in our opinion and we cancelled our snow mobile tour)
4pm Santa Claus House (SKIP IT!!! A tourist trap and things are WAY overpriced, get to the airport for the same, if not better items or go into town for cheaper finds!)
6:30pm Dinner at The Pump House (reservations needed) we highly recommend this spot, their menu makes it worth every penny! Make sure you try some delicious reindeer sausage!
