While Whittier may not be considered to be a destination location to most it is worth a day trip to me. The Camping in the Portage area is some of the best in the lower Anchorage bowl area.
Whittier is, I believe the farthest north, ice free US port for shipping. It was developed during WWII, same time frame as the building of the Alaska Hwy by the US military as a way to get troops into Alaska, all year around. So it is a bit of a strange place due to all these factors. The military built two huge building in Whittierr, one is now the Begich Towers and the other sets abandoned. At the time they were built they were the largest building in Alaska. The Begich building was bult mainly as an apartment build and that is what it is still used for. It is 14 stories tall, has almost 200 apartments to house the just leas than 200 year around residents. The local school is next door and is connected to the apartment building by a tunnel so the students don't have to go outside to get to school or back home
Whittier weather is often very different from that in Portage. Portage may be sunny and warm and Whittier will be low clouds and rain. The military built a rail road tunnl from Whittier to Portage where it connected to the Alaska Railroad which the military also owned and operated at the time.
I have been to Whittier, probably half a dozen times over the years. my wife and I like to ride our motorcycle, from Nenana where we lived for 13 years over to Delta, south to Valdez and catch the ferry over to Whittier. At that time we would have to put the bike on a flat bed rail car and ride with it through the tunnel to be off loaded in Portage, where we could go south to the Kenai or north to head back home.
Now days you can drive vehicles through the train tunnel. Directions alternate every 30 minutes as I remember and trains still have priority use. Just the drive through the tunnel is a fun experience for us. In Whittier, there is a large small boat harbor, several day long boat tours around the area, good places to eat, etc. It is a cruise ship docking town, but the people are mainly getting off the cruise ships and onto buses or trains to head to Anchorage. A large majority of all ocean freight headed into main land Alaska enters through the Port of Valdez. The rail barges out of the Seattle area and Prince Rupert load and unload here.
While Whittier is not somewhere we go every trip, for someone that has never been there, to me it would be worth a days time, to do the trip. Would just depend on how tight your time schedule was at the time.
