Alaska!

Alaska, known as the Last Frontier is by far the largest U.S. state by area, comprising more total area than the next three largest states Texas, California, and Montana combined. It holds a special place in my heart for one specific reason. It was my 50th state!! A few years ago my best friend moved just outside of Anchorage and this past Spring when Delta had a fantastic deal with points (12,000 points per person round trip from ATL to ANC) we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to visit the last Frontier. Alaska is beautiful. When talking to my friend before our trip up north she told me, ‘Alaska is nothing like you imagine’. I couldn’t wait to see it for myself. We landed in Anchorage around dinner time and thanks to summer time daylight hours it stayed light until almost 11pm. This gave us a chance to drive around Anchorage and see a few things before heading to our hotel for the night. We stayed at the Sheraton and had a great view of the town, surrounding mountains and a tiny airport which served for great entertainment the next day as all the sight seeing flights take off from that airport.

We spent the next few days at the Snowgoose Pond B&B in Palmer AK. It was adorable and the few from the backyard was incredible.

Jinks and her husband are the sweetest couple and their dog Ratchet was oh so very friendly. We were told to make ourselves at home and that was definitely easy to do. We had a lovely little room upstairs with our own bathroom. Breakfast was served fresh every morning. We were even lucky enough to enjoy their famous sourdough blueberry pancakes one morning.

Talkeetna is a cute town and the perfect spot to see Mt McKinley from the banks of the river. Most days you’ll get to see about 15% of the total mountain, but if you’re lucky you’ll get to see more. We ate at the Talkeetna brewing company and enjoyed the atmosphere and the food.

The Town of Whittier is another great stop. There is one road in and out, through a tunnel, so if you don’t time your visit correctly you can be stuck on one side or the other for a while. The day we went was rainy and cold but that made it even more enjoyable. It’s a cute fishing town, and if you're brave you can even go out sea kayaking!

There is so much more to Alaska and we just barely scratched the surface in this short trip in and around Anchorage. We loved our time there and cannot wait to go back and explore some more! Do you want more details and photos from our journey? Leave a comment below.