FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - 3-4 weeks in Alaska on a shoestring budget – suggestions?
Old May 6, 2016, 6:04 pm
  #4  
alaskantraveler
 
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Anchorage, Alaska
Programs: AS MVP 75K, DL Gold
Posts: 204
I agree. $40/day will be a very difficult budget to keep. If you are flying into Fairbanks and want to be on the cheap you could consider hitchhiking to the park entrance. It's right off the highway and you can walk the 1 or two miles to the visitor center where you catch the bus. I don't think you will have to much problem with hitchhiking there. Get someone with a truck so there is room for your stuff including all your groceries in the back.

The park is beautiful. Once you take the bus into the park you may not want to spend the effort to come back to the entrance to resupply. The road is 90 miles out and the buses drive at about 20 miles per hour. There is also limited shopping options anywhere near the park and what is available is really expensive.

Two weeks is a long time to camp in the park. Expect lots of mosquitoes, temps dropping into the high forties at night, and rain. It could rain every day for two weeks or it could not. Plan for rain. Once you leave the park. Find a hostel for the night to get cleaned up and you shouldn't have any problems hitchhiking to Talkeetna. You can camp for free along the river. Not officially suppose to, but I've done it many times.

You can hitchhike from there to Anchorage. Anchorage is a fun city, but you will be very limited on $40 a day. Try couch surfing. As said before there are better places to see south of Anchorage including Girdwood, Seward, hope, and Kenai. Also some great hikes down that way. An idea is to rent a uhaul van for $19.99 per day then buy a blowup mattress from WM and you have a dry comfortable place to sleep. It costs $0.55 per mile, but rental cars are spending in the summer. You could rent one in Anchorage and drive it south to Seward. 150 miles. So $80 in mileage or rent one in Seward or Kenai then have wheels and a place to sleep. Wouldnt even have to stay in camp grounds that usually cost $20+ per night.

Another idea would be to buy a car in Fairbanks then sell it in Anchorage (buying a selling cars in Alaska is a pretty easy process and only cost $15 to transfer title into your name). You should be able to pickup an older dependable car in the $1500-$2000 range. Try to sell it for what you paid for it or take a small loss. Would probably be cheaper than a rental car.

Last edited by alaskantraveler; May 6, 2016 at 6:14 pm
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