Alaska

Alaska has more coastline than the rest of the country put together, but almost none of it is for swimming. Even in August the sea off Seward, Homer or Juneau rarely gets above 13°C, and many shores are rock, glacial silt or tidal mudflats with strong currents. Beaches here are for walking, beachcombing and watching sea otters, not for spending a day in the water.

On warm summer days locals take quick dips in Interior lakes near Fairbanks and in the Mat-Su valley north of Anchorage, but no visitor should plan a trip around it. Anyone who wants water time does better with a hotel pool or the hot springs.

Eating well in Alaska comes down to the sea. Wild sockeye and king salmon, halibut, spot prawns, oysters from Kachemak Bay and king crab from the Bering Sea are the highlights, and they are best in summer when the fishing season is on. Homer, Seward, Juneau and Sitka have harbourside fish shacks and smokehouses, and Anchorage has the widest range, from good seafood dining rooms to reindeer sausage sold at street carts.

The state also has a strong craft beer and distilling culture, with brewpubs in nearly every town of any size. Away from Anchorage, though, the choice drops off quickly. Lodges and cruise ports serve tourist menus, food from the outside costs a lot, and many places close outside the summer season.

Alaska's heritage is Indigenous, Russian and gold rush, and it is spread thin over a huge state. Anchorage has the two strongest collections. The Anchorage Museum covers Arctic art and history, and the Alaska Native Heritage Center has traditional dwellings from the state's main cultures. In the south-east, Sitka keeps the onion domes of St Michael's Cathedral and the Russian Bishop's House, and Sitka National Historical Park has a coastal trail lined with totem poles. Ketchikan has more totem poles at Saxman and Totem Bight and the creekside boardwalk of Creek Street.

Skagway's preserved Klondike-era main street and Juneau's small state capitol add to that. Most sights take an hour or two, and visitors come for the land, not the buildings.

Going out in Alaska means a brewpub, a historic saloon or a hotel bar. Anchorage has the most choice, with a handful of bars and taprooms downtown and in Midtown and a few places that stay open late at weekends. Old frontier saloons in Juneau, Skagway, Talkeetna and Fairbanks have sawdust floors and walls covered in decades of visitors' scrawls and keepsakes, and they are worth a drink or two. Beyond that there is very little.

The long summer light makes evenings feel endless, but in the park towns and fishing ports most people go to bed early before a morning boat or flight. Anyone looking for clubs or a late scene will find almost nothing.

This is wilderness on a scale few places anywhere can match. Denali rises more than 5,000m above the tundra of its national park, where buses run along the single park road past grizzlies, caribou and moose. South of Anchorage, the Kenai Peninsula covers most of the state in miniature: glacier day cruises from Seward into Kenai Fjords for humpbacks, orcas and puffins, trails to Exit Glacier and Harding Icefield, salmon rivers and kayaking on Resurrection Bay. Bears gather to fish at Katmai and Lake Clark, a short flight from Homer or Anchorage.

The south-east is a world of rainforest, fjords and tidewater glaciers around Juneau, Glacier Bay and the Inside Passage, best seen by boat or floatplane. Summer, from late May to early September, brings near-endless daylight for hiking, fishing and flightseeing. Winter belongs to the aurora, dog sledding and skiing around Fairbanks and Girdwood.

Separate places to visit for a day are few and small. From Anchorage, the drive along Turnagain Arm leads to the ski village of Girdwood and the harbour town of Seward, about two and a half hours away, with its aquarium and boat harbour. To the north, Talkeetna is an old riverside town of log cabins with views of Denali, and Palmer has a farming-colony heritage and a summer state fair. Whittier, reached through a single-lane tunnel, is a curiosity.

In the south-east, a ferry or fast boat from Juneau reaches Skagway's gold rush streets. Most of these towns are gateways to glaciers and wildlife, so the outing is really about nature, and the list of towns, heritage sites or wine areas runs out quickly.

Alaska works for families who like the outdoors and are happy with long travel days. Whales and sea lions from a Kenai Fjords day cruise, moose by the roadside, gold panning in Fairbanks and Skagway and the scenic Alaska Railroad all go down well with children. The Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward and the small Alaska Zoo in Anchorage are the attractions made for children, and short, easy trails reach glaciers such as Exit Glacier and Mendenhall.

On the other hand, distances are long, the weather is cool and often wet even in July, and wildlife tours can mean many hours on a boat or bus. Bright nights can upset sleep, so blackout curtains are worth having. Cruise ships and an Anchorage-and-Kenai road trip are the easiest ways to bring younger children.

Getting around shapes every Alaska trip. Most visitors pick one of two patterns. The first is a cruise or ferry along the Inside Passage, where towns such as Juneau, Ketchikan and Sitka are not connected by road and are reached only by sea or air. The second is a road trip from Anchorage, which links the Kenai Peninsula, the Mat-Su valley, Denali and Fairbanks by paved highway. The Alaska Railroad runs the same corridor in summer and is a highlight in its own right.

A car is needed for most land trips, and the drives are long: Anchorage to Denali takes about four hours, and some roads are gravel. Towns are small and walkable, but the best wildlife and glaciers often mean an extra boat or small plane.

Shopping is about Alaska Native art and local crafts. Look for baskets, carvings, beadwork, knitwear of soft musk ox qiviut and the curved ulu knife, and buy them where the maker is named or the piece carries the Silver Hand mark for Native-made work. Anchorage has the best choice, with galleries downtown, the Alaska Native Medical Center craft shop and an open-air market at summer weekends.

The cruise ports of Juneau, Ketchikan and Skagway are lined with jewellery and souvenir shops built for ship days. They feel the same from town to town and have little that is local. Beyond crafts and outdoor gear, Alaska is not a place to shop.

Alaska is an expensive place to visit in summer, which is when nearly everyone comes. With a short season and limited supply, rooms in Denali, Seward, Homer and the cruise ports cost a lot, car hire is dear, and most of the big experiences are paid tours: glacier cruises, flightseeing, bear viewing by floatplane. Food and fuel cost more than elsewhere in the country because so much is shipped in.

Campgrounds, public-use cabins, hostels and self-catering from Anchorage supermarkets bring costs down a good deal, and walking on trails is free. Shoulder months in late May and September are a little cheaper, but a typical trip still needs a large budget.

Live performance is modest and mostly in Anchorage, where the downtown performing arts centre houses a local symphony, a small opera company and touring productions, mostly in the winter season. Juneau has a long-standing professional theatre, and Sitka holds a well-regarded chamber music festival in June. In summer, the Alaska Native Heritage Center and Native dance groups in Sitka, Ketchikan and Juneau stage traditional drumming and dancing, which is the performance most visitors will see.

Elsewhere, evening entertainment means gold rush revues in Skagway and Fairbanks and folk musicians in small-town bars. Few visitors build a trip around it.

Alaska's bathing tradition is its natural hot springs, but few of them are easy to reach. The best known are at Chena, about an hour east of Fairbanks, where an outdoor rock pool steams in the cold air and winter visitors soak under the northern lights. Tenakee Springs in the south-east keeps an old village bathhouse, and in Girdwood, south of Anchorage, a large Nordic-style spa with outdoor pools sits in the rainforest below the ski slopes.

The deeper calm is found in remote lodges and cabins on Kachemak Bay, in the Denali backcountry or along the Inside Passage, where days end in silence. A typical summer itinerary, though, is full of early boats, long drives and packed tour days rather than rest.