There's a really good salmon-bake restaurant near Exit Glacier just outside of Seward.

Sounds good, as I wanted to avoid the tourist trap version up near Denali...but do they serve their salmon raw too?

Good idea, the Denali place is a real tourist trap. The place in Seward is a bit touristy, but not nearly as much so as the one in Denali. They do smoked salmon, of course, at the salmon bake in Seward, but I don't remember if they had raw or not.

If you end up doing the itinerary I listed, there is a real locals joint in Valdez called the Halibut House. It's a carry-out window kinda place, but the fish was outstanding. They don't sell salmon, though.

What is the best hotel in Fairbanks? Im looking for something with high speed Internet and modern facilities.

Very, very, very good info posted in this thread here. I wanted to let all of you planning to come up to read through the other few most recent threads in this forum. You may need to expand the view to threads within the last couple of months--I'm not sure when the last activity in them was, but the one about the 10-day trip and another one about Princess lodges in Alaska have a lot of discussion (some courtesy of yours truly) about potential itineraries. I can't spend 6 hours putting together info for this thread (as I seemed to do on the others) as it's finals week and I really should be writing an English paper, but I can't resist the siren call of FT...

A couple of points I wanted to make:

1) Good seafood in Anchorage (I can't really speak to restaurants on the Peninsula as I don't make it down there often): Simon and Seafort's has my favorite meal of all time: Parmesan and asiago-crusted halibut with buttered asparagus. Skip the Phyllis' Salmon Bake across from the 5th Avenue Mall (touristy and most of the people I know say it's not great fish--never been there myself, though). The White Spot Cafe has great halibut sandwiches, and Southside Bistro has great fish, too. There's a more comprehensive posting regarding my restaurant recommendations in Anchorage over on the Kayak.com forums.

I can't speak to the salmon sashimi or sushi, though--I'm not a huge sushi fan. In fact, I'm not a huge salmon fan (although I'll eat it willingly if it's good); I MUCH prefer the far sweeter flavor of halibut. DO NOT MISS eating fresh halibut while you're here!

2) Most of the questions about where to stay near Denali have been addressed (personally, I've only stayed at the Denali Princess, so I can't add much to the discussion), but I did want to address someone's question about how far the McKinley Princess is from the park entrance. The McKinley Princess is on a bluff a bit north of Talkeetna, so you'd need to plan your schedule to accommodate a roughly two-hour drive up to the park entrance itself. It's got a great view of the mountain (in clear weather). Actually, if you stay in the park resort area itself, you won't be able to see the mountain at all, since you're in the middle of the Alaska Range, so if you want a room with a view, this might be better, but again, it's still a ways from the park activities.

3) SRQ Guy said he got a car for $200 for a week. Don't be surprised if you find rates FAR higher than that--right now, I'm seeing $350 per week base/$500 after taxes for a COMPACT car for July. SRQ Guy must have been traveling in the shoulder season (May or September) or just simply stumbled across a rate that was most likely a glitch in the computer system. To everyone coming: book soon as cars actually do sell out up here in the summer (I know; I worked in the industry and sort of still do). (Most reservations can be cancelled and rebooked if you do find a cheaper rate, so don't hesitate to click "Reserve.")

4) If you CAN squeeze in an Alaska Railroad trip, I highly recommend it. I've done both ANC-FAI and ANC-Seward with family and they've all enjoyed it immensely. Seward works well as a day trip as the train arrives in Seward at around noon and leaves at around 6pm, and some of the half-day cruises are timed to fit with the train schedule. However, as has already been mentioned, the full-day cruises are worth the extra time, but that puts a cramp in the train schedule. (Disclaimer: I work for the railroad, but I still heartily recommend it...) I've also heard (as has already been mentioned) that cruises out of Whittier see more glaciers (especially the 26 Glacier Cruise) while Seward cruises see more wildlife. Take your pick, though you'll see a lot of both either way. Hint: if you do the Valdez-Whittier ferry run, you do pass Columbia Glacier (huge--the size of Los Angeles) on the way over, so you can kill two birds with one stone (not eagles, please) that way, though the actual glacier cruises do see a lot more.

5) What is an elk? Three people mentioned seeing elk up here. I know that Brits call our moose "elk," but for heaven's sake, don't ask any locals where the elk are--they'll have no clue what you're talking about...

Again, I recommend combing through the other threads in the Alaska forum here. We've devoted lots of time to discussing hotels around Denali, the merits of stopping in Fairbanks and what to do in Seward. Oh, and DEFINITELY do get a Milepost--best place I've seen online is Amazon.com ($17, I think). You can get them for $12 at Costco here in Anchorage, but you really should get it now and read about the roads you're going to travel on. When you do get to Anchorage, you might want to look at one of the DeLorme Alaska Atlas & Gazetteers (also available at Costco) for extremely detailed topo maps of the entire state. Ask for one of the Alaska Channel guidebooks free at many places around town (I know at least three rental agencies stock them at the airport counters, too)--they're some of the best guidebooks I've seen about the state (different from the Milepost, which has heavy advertising and no real opinions or reviews and is simply a guide to what you'll run into as you travel each road). Of course, Lonely Planet and Let's Go do a good job, too, but they may be aimed at a slightly different crowd.


OK, OK, enough out of me--I'm already going to have to forgo a full night's sleep for this paper...

BINGO. I thought I mentioned that, but we were traveling in late May, returning home on Memorial Day. It made for a very nice trip as everything was very uncrowded but everything was open and the weather was spectacular. This Floridian got sunburned in Alaska.

And as a recent traveler to Alaska, I second and third jackal's suggestion to get the Milepost. That is the single most useful travel guide I have ever used for any destination. Even better,m it's full of discounts and you're sure to more than make up for it's small cost.

Well, it'd be hard to do a Milepost anywhere else. Between Alaska and northwestern Canada (what's covered in the Milepost) there are, what, 20 or 30 roads? And most of the entries in the road logs are for things like "culvert over Fish Creek" and "campground next to Bear Lake" and "turnout for slow vehicles"--there just isn't a lot of stuff along the roads here!

I'd hate to see how thick a Milepost for California would be--heck, one just for Los Angeles County would be several thousand pages! Even travel through rural Wyoming or Colorado can't compare to the vast stretches of road devoid of human civilization here (not to mention the supermajority of the state that can't even be accessed by road...).

One other suggetion re: Katmai. When Mrs JJ and I did our trip, we flew to King Salmon and used the air taxi service to Katmai, which gave us a full day, then flew back to King Salmon for an overnight. We spent two days - one for bear viewing and one to "tour" the park/valley of 10,000 smokes.
I've fished in the Bristol Bay area since the early '80's so I was familiar with much of the river area having fished it many times (usually in late September after the park officially closed for tourists).

Spring Hill Suites by Marriott

We were there last June.

Since it is the only hotel I've stayed at in Fairbanks, I couldn't say if this is the best hotel in Fairbanks. However, we were very happy with it. They have high-speed Internet access and it is a new modern facility.

Good laundry facilities.

One thing we liked best about this hotel was the restaurant was unusually good. Not just good for a Marriott, but good in general. Above the 98 percentile for hotel restaurants in the lower 48. They had an exceedingly good kitchen staff that made the most marvelous dishes. It was crowded with people coming in from outside the hotel. Wait staff was good as well.

We will be staying there again.