Free Alaska Planning Guide
State of Alaska Vacation Planner

Holland America Cruisetour Destinations

EXPLORE ALASKA WITH HOLLAND AMERICA

• Alyeska
  Alyeska, Alaska's premier year-round resort boasts the beautiful Aleyska Resort. Choose a cruisetour featuring an overnight stay at this lavish hotel and take the aerial tram to the top of Mt. Alyeska for an unforgettable meal at the four-diamond Seven Glaciers Restaurant.
  
  
• Anchorage
  Beautifully situated on Cook Inlet and surrounded by the Chugach Mountains, Anchorage is a hub of activity with everything from fine restaurants and frontier saloons to museums and art galleries. Popular excursions include Redoubt Bay bear viewing, fly fishing and Knik Glacier flightseeing.
  
  
• Beaver Creek
  Beaver Creek, population 143, is one of two sites where Alaska Highway construction crews working from opposite directions connected the highway. They met here in October 1942 at Milepost 1202. Beaver Creek is the home of the Westmark Inn, which provides a welcome sight to travelers.
  
  
• Coldfoot
  Watch for members of the famed Porcupine Caribou Herd as you travel to Coldfoot. This tiny outpost sits at the mouth of Slate Creek on the east bank of the Middle Fork of the Koyukuk River at Mile 175 of the Dalton Highway, and is home to a historic mining camp and a population or 13. Originally called Slate Creek, the town got its name from miners who got cold feet and departed.
  
  
• Cooper Landing
  The world's most avid fishermen and women come to the Kenai River to angle for trophy-sized salmon. History buffs and nature lovers will enjoy the visit to Cooper Landing as well - the area is rich with native heritage and tranquil scenery. An overnight stay completes your unforgettable Kenai experience.
  
  
• Dawson City
  When you think of the gold rush, think of this Klondike National Historic Site. Dawson City is where more than 30,000 Stampeders transformed a fishing camp at the confluence of the Yukon and Klondike rivers into the largest city west of Winnipeg and north of Seattle. You'll find history along the creaky wooden sidewalks, at the Dawson City Museum and Historical Society, and in the authentic costumes the townsfolk wear. Every cruisetour featuring Dawson City includes an extra day to explore the Heart of the Klondike.
  
  
• Denali National Park
  This vast untamed wilderness is home to the continent's mightiest peak - a towering massif that makes its own weather. Enjoy the extra day of unscheduled time Holland America built into more cruisetours than ever so you can experience the park's magnificent diversity. With any luck you'll see grizzly crossing braided streams, Dall sheep traversing rugged cliffs and moose foraging in upland meadows. And don't miss an amazing array of optional activities. Like flightseeing to Mt. Denali and landing on a glacier, paddling class III and IV rapids through breathtaking Canyon Run, or exploring on a wilderness horseback adventure. More About Alaska's National Parks
  
  
• Eagle
  Eagle is located east of Fairbanks between Tok and the United States/Yukon Territory border at Mile 160 along Highway 5. Set on the banks of the Yukon River, it is the starting or ending point for Holland America's tour on the mv Yukon Queen II between Dawson City and Eagle. Named after the nesting eagles on nearby Eagle Bluff, the city was founded in 1987. It is home to 146 residents with a total of 234 people in the valley including the Han Indian village three miles up river. A Historic District and National Landmark, it operated as a supply and trading center before becoming the first city to incorporate in Interior Alaska.
  
  
• Fairbanks
  Work up an appetite panning for your keepsake gold. Afterwards, savor a hearty miner's stew at the authentic Gold Dredge No. 8, restored by Holland America Line and listed on the Register of National Historic Sites. Then sail aboard the sternwheeler riverboat Discovery to visit with a native beadwork artist and meet Susan Butcher, four-time Iditarod Champion and her famous sled dogs. Fairbanks is also the starting point for optional adventures that spotlight the native culture and rugged beauty of the Far North, including flighseeing over the Arctic Circle.
  
  
• Gates of the Arctic National Park
  Frigid Crags and Boreal Mountain give Alaska's ultimate wilderness its name. These dramatic peaks mark the gateway from Alaska's central Brooks Range into the arctic regions of the Far North . . . and a remarkable world of uncommon adventures. More About Alaska's National Parks
  
  
• Homer
  Travel the Sterling Highway as far as it will go just to stand in wonder on the shores of Kachemak Bay. Here, at the tip of the narrow strip of land, dazzling scenery will surround you. A rugged coastline creased with narrow fjords and a towering chain of glacier-draped mountains reveal a thousand moods. Fishermen set off from the bustling harbor to capture trophy-sized halibut. Clammers wade through the tial flats. And the charming shops dotting the five-mile-long Homer Spit lend an inviting New England feel. Homer, the gateway to the Alaska Maritime Wildlife Refuge - the largest of its kind in the world - is waiting to be discovered via hiking trail, kayak or fishing boat. And don't miss the incomparable bear-viewing tours at world-famous Katmai National Park.
  
  
• Juneau
  Located at the foot of grand mountain peaks on the Gastineau Channel, the town of Juneau has the massive Mendenhall Glacier and the immense Juneau Icefields at its back door. This is the place to let your imagination run wild. Explore the lush Tongass Rain Forest. Shop the rustic shops in town. Or get out and kayak, dogsled, raft, bike, hike, heli-hike, flightsee, or fish.
  
  
• Kenai Fjords National Park
  Sweeping from rocky coastline to glacier-crowned peaks, Kenai Fjords National Park is one of Southcentral Alaska's most scenic attractions. A dayboat cruise through the park's long, steep-sided, glacier-carved valleys gives you an up-close look at abundant wildlife. Watch for bald eagles, listen to the sounds of thousands of seabirds and share the waters with Stellar sea lions, harbor seals, Dall's porpoises, sea otters and whales.
  
  
• Kenai Peninsula
  The Athabascan Indians, among the first inhabitants of the borough, founded a land, which offered a rich bounty of fish and game. Russian fur traders, in the 1700's, settled along the shore of the Cook Inlet and the Gulf of Alaska, amassing a harvest of sea otters year after year. By the turn of the 19th Century, seekers of new wealth flocked to Alaska, some settling on the Kenai Peninsula. Miners journeyed north in search of gold and founded several borough communities. Fisherman settled near the Cook Inlet to reap the harvest from the sea. Today's borough residents base their livelihood on development of vast and diverse resources, which continue to bring people to the area.
  
  
• Kluane National Park
  Kluane National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is so wild and remote few even know its name. Holland America has partnered with Parks Canada to bring you guided explorations to help you appreciate the enormity of the land and the diversity of the wildlife. And special presentations introduce you to wonders like towering Mt. Logan, the continent's second-tallest peak. No one else offers this unique combination of park-sponsored activities and optional excursions. Optional activities range from wild to mild including rafting on the Tatshenshini River, flightseeing to the "world's largest non-polar icefield", canoe fishing, and various guided hikes.
  
  
• Prudhoe Bay
  A trip to Prudhoe Bay spotlights the North Slope's famed oil fields, the 800-mile TransAlaska pipeline and much more. In fact, it's one of our premier wildlife-viewing adventures. Here, at the end of the world, you can gaze across the vast Arctic Ocean. Then sightsee south along the Dalton Highway "haul road," crossing the ancient Brooks Range mountains into caribou country.
  
  
• Seattle
  The Emerald City of the Pacific Northwest, Seattle is known for its stunning waterfront. "Catch" a salmon at Pike Place Market, ride to the top of the Space Needle, sample a local microbrew in funky Fremont, or down a cup of java in the coffee capital of the world.
  
  
• Seward
  Ice-free the year round, Seward was a natural choice as the ocean terminal and supply center during the construction of the Alaska Railroad. Today, it is the gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park and home of the Annual Silver Salmon Derby, the biggest fishing event in Alaska. Find out what lives beneath the surface of Resurrection Bay and Prince William Sound at the Sealife Center, financed in part by the infamous Exxon Valdez oil spill settlement. Towering Mt. Marathon provides a breathtaking backdrop for a historic downtown district filled with quaint shops.
  
  
• Skagway
  History never gets old in Skagway. This Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park boasts restored buildings and wooden boardwalks that invite you to take a stroll into the past. Take your time and poke into every little store from the Trail Bench to Lynch & Kennedy's Dry Goods. The Red Onion Saloon, with its honky tonk piano and costumed barmaids, is a treasure trove of memorabilia featuring pictures of Klondike Kate, Peahull Annie and other vintage characters. To complete the picture of those rip-roaring days, visit the nostalgic Trail of '98 Museum.
  
  
• The Yukon
  Sail past the Steamboat Graveyard where beached paddle-wheelers evoke the rip-roaring days of the Yukon River. Stand on the bridge of the mv Yukon Queen II, the only sightseeing vessel for cruisetour travelers, as the Captain navigates the beautiful wilderness of the third-longest river in North America. Look for moose wading in the shallows as you enjoy a hearty prospector's lunch. Wave to rugged homesteaders as you pass their stakes. Your 102-mile journey between Eagle and Dawson City is haunted by echoes of the gold rush and blessed by magnificent scenery.
  
  
• Tok
  Tok is called the "Gateway to Alaska," as it is the first major community upon entering Alaska from Canada. Tok (rhymes with poke) began as a road construction camp on the Alaska Highway.
  
  
• Tombstone Territorial Park
  Visitors driving out from Dawson City along the famous Dempster Highway will pass through land merely 200 million years old - the Tintina Trench, a massive fault line straddling the Yukon and parts of Alaska - and travel into the sub-arctic tundra valleys of Tombstone Territorial Park. The vistas are endless, the valleys broad and rugged. This land attracted some of the first known settlements of man in the New World and remains the ancestral home of the Tr'ondek Hwech'in First Nation. It is also the realm of a full range of wildlife, from grizzlies and moose to peregrines and plovers. This remote wonderland receives very few visitors. It is untamed in every sense of the word. It is reassuring that these places still exist, and that Holland America guests can visit them.
  
  
• Whitehorse
  The Klondike Stampeders got to Whitehorse by foot over the Chilkoot Pass, then by surviving the treacherous White Horse Rapids. A town grew at the head of navigation on the Yukon River, and became the territorial headquarters for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and was name capital of the Yukon Territory in 1953. If you find yourself with time in Whitehorse, Holland America Line's jumping off point for Kluane National Park, be sure to visit the ss Klondike National Historic Site and enjoy a performance of the rollicking Frantic Follies Vaudeville Revue.