Alaska - The Kenai Peninsula makes the NY Times

Some questions that crop up in this forum fairly frequently ask about what is there to do and see south of Anchorage on the Kenai, or what are Seward and Homer like.

This Sunday's NY Times travel section has a pretty neat article about the writer's trip on the Kenai:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/travel/22alaska.html

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I swear the NYT's guy must have been stalking me on one of my Kenai trips since he mentions my usual stops: Hope, Sixmile, Ray's, Cooper Landing and Gwin's, Skilak Lake Road (which is yet another "off-limits" road for several rental car companies :rolleyes:) , Fat Olive's, Ninilchik, the Homer Spit, Halibut Cove.

[btw most first time visitors would probably find a detour and visit to the Portage visitors center more interesting than a detour and visit to Hope.]

The article also helps explain why some visitors report that they find Seward or Homer somewhat depressing while others mention them as highlights of their trips.

Even I found some interesting things I'd never known in that article! Highly recommended reading for folks looking to travel up here.

As you can see, the author spent six days on the Peninsula and still didn't cover everything (his wife said she would have liked more time in Seward, too). They didn't even do a Harding Ice Field hike (or at least they didn't mention it), an overnight kayak trip out on Resurrection Bay or Prince William Sound, or any of the numerous other adventures they could have.

And they didn't even touch north of Anchorage--Denali, Fairbanks, the Haul Road, Eagle, floating the Yukon, Valdez--or off the road system completely (Gates of the Arctic, Kobuk Valley, Katmai/Brooks Falls, Lake Clark, Barrow, etc.). You really need an entire summer to see everything there is here!

And today Bethel (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/us/22taxi.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin) makes the NYT. I noticed the writer didn't mention (didn't know?) that one of the reasons for so many taxis in Bethel was that they were the principal bootleggers in years past, owing to the town being dry.

And today Bethel makes the NYT. Yeah, the Bethel taxi story is an AP story that has run in papers all over the nation this past week. It has even shown up in the Guardian in the UK.

btw I'd recommend that any first time visitors to Alaska skip Bethel, even if they're fond of taxis :)