Alaska - If in Anchorage one full day because of MR, what to do?

OK, so this is my first MR (DTW-MSP-ANC-MSP-DTW) to retain my Plat status on NWA/Delta, or whatever the shotgun-marriaged airline is called these days. I am spending one day in ANC later this week and I have looked at all the tourism possibilities there. I have no criteria by which to judge any tourism claims, except that I don't want to be tourist-trapped. My question to my fellow FTers is, if you were to be in ANC in December, and had one day to spend, what would you do? Since most of you seem to be kind strangers, I would defer to someone who has done this and has some fond licit memory. And no, I will not drive to Wasilla.

By the way, I am a long-time lurker because the acronym and short-hand requirements for posting intelligently here are beyond my expertise or desire for expertise (I don't go out of my way to remember wine names and varieties, either: Asking for red or white fulfills my meager needs)

Welcome long time lurker and hope you'll spend more time learning the arcane vocabulary sometimes used - I haven't figured out some of it.

As for ANC - have visited a couple of times, but not enuf to be comfortable making suggestions, such things are highly dependent on personal preferences.

For trips anywhere, the most useful single site has been tripadvisor:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/

This gives great info on what to see, where to eat, etc. You might want to look into a backup hotel if you end up spending more time there than you intended.

Happy travels!

Check Community for a thread called: The Consolidated ANC Meet-up Thread.

There are some great local FTers there who will go out of there way to make you feel welcome. I'm sure they will have some great suggestion, and with any luck, given notice and available time, they might even have a Mini-Do.

This is a great bunch of guys who go out of their way to greet visitors to ANC and Alaska.

Have fun.

Thank you, rtarbuck,
I just checked the thread you recommended and I even found another thread about what to do in ANC in March, which I found helpful.

I noticed my posting got shifted from the MR discussion to the Travel area, which makes sense since it was not really about MRs. Oh, well....

Didn't see this thread until after I read and responded to your post in the CAMUT thread. (No, that's not a weird and arcane FT acronym...it's my new acronym for the Consolidated Anchorage Meet-Up Thread, which I finally got tired of typing out every time I needed to reference it...so I guess I've just made it a weird and arcane FT acronym! :p) Here's what I said there so we can shift any discussion on it here:

As far as what to do in such a short time: well, Anchorage is a good base for exploring the real Alaska nearby, but especially in the winter, there's not tons to do in the city itself. Still, you should be able to occupy yourself for at least most of the day with a couple of the local museums--the Anchorage Museum of History and Art isn't too shabby, and the Alaska Native Heritage Center is an interesting (if expensive) option.

If you're OK with driving in winter conditions, you can head out of Anchorage to the south or north a bit (south to Girdwood or Portage or north to Palmer--both under an hour each way) for some pretty spectacular scenery.

Check out the Wikitravel page on Anchorage (http://wikitravel.org/en/Anchorage) (some of which was written by yours truly...especially the restaurant listings! :D) for some ideas.

Hey, Jackal, many, many thanks!

This is exactly what I was looking for. Arrived last night at 9 pm. I may be wrong but I noticed that our pilot did not turn on the landing lights as we approached Anchorage International Airport. Pretty nifty airport. Went to the rental car agency got to my hotel. Today I am ready for my ANC, AK (short-hand:) adventure.

Whenever my buddies and I go to ANC for some summer fishin, we always hit the Great Alaskan Bush Company for some drinkin' and "entertainment".;)