To continue with a few remaining snippets of advice:
Originally Posted by
stupidzbu
One of my MRs has me land at 4 pm and take off at midnight
should I plan on just staying in the airport .... or is there something worth doing for about 6 hours?
CDKing's right. No reason to stick around the airport...although rumor has it Silver Gulch at the airport has some good beer (not to mention the free stuff in the AS Board Room is Alaskan Amber). But six hours is plenty of time to get downtown, walk around, and grab a drink or two. Downtown is nice, especially in the summer when it's light out late and there's lots of activity.
Originally Posted by
Kidorki
Managed to get a ticket yesterday, will be flying to ANC on 9/14 then back 9/16, 48 hours to spend there.
It is my first MR & first trip to AK, pretty excited about it. I am thinking to take a day cruise/tour to see the glacier, and would love to hear other recommendation for activities. Also can someone recommend an area in town that is both convenient and safe to stay for single female traveler? Thanks.
Check the day cruise schedules to make sure it'll work for you. Stuff really starts shutting down right around the middle of September (9/15). Assuming all options are still available to you while you're in Alaska, I'll point out that you can do day cruises out of both Whittier and Seward. Whittier is a little bit closer to ANC (~1h vs 2.5h, although you can wait up to a half an hour to get through the one-lane tunnel to Whittier). Whittier cruises tend to see more glaciers and also traverse the protected (i.e. not choppy) waters of Prince William Sound, whereas Seward's cruises see a good bit more wildlife but fewer glaciers (although they usually include a trip to at least one large, spectacular glacier). Rates might be lower as you're off of peak, so that's a potential plus.
I made up a list of ANC hotel options and posted it in post #5 here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/20388098-post5.html. That post does touch a bit on safety, but basically, most major properties are in perfectly safe areas. As a single female traveler, you probably don't want to be walking alone at night in Mountain View or Fairview, but you won't be anywhere near those if you're at any hotel in town. Parts of Spenard can be a bit dicey ,but the part with the major hotels is fine (it's further up Spenard away from the airport where the illicit activity occurs). Downtown, especially anything on the west end of downtown (i.e. the Hilton and everything west), is perfectly safe to walk around at any time.
One thing I do miss about moving out of ANC was getting to play host to the hordes of FlyerTalkers who used to come up on mileage run fares. Travel safe, everyone!