I find I can make a great trip to Alaska with only two months, from here in south Florida. Two weeks up and the same back gives us a month in Alaska. Plenty of time to see friends, hit a few of our favorite tourist attractions, catch a few fish, take a few thousand photos and breath a lot of good clean air, plus swat a few mosquitos. LOL
I figure about 10 days driving time from here in Florida to Fairbanks and have done it numerous times in that time frame. That is 20 of my 28 days I allow for travel. So we will spend two or three days in Whitehorse, usually a day at Liard River Hot Springs, There are three favorite places of our we like to visit, just not every trip, Skagway, Dawson Town and Atlin BC. So one of those places will get a day or two, every third trip. I just realized I am setting here smiling like a possum eating corn or something, just thinking about the north country.
The key to doing this is to get on the road early and put in a full days drive. Several of the first or second timers to Alaska have stated they only drive 200 or 250 miles a day, so it does take them a lot longer to get to Alaska. If I did that I would have to take roughly a month to get there and the same to get back home and still only have a month in Alaska. Some, because of age, poor health can't do anymore than a couple of hundred miles a day, and I can understand that as I am sure at some point I will have to deal with that as I turn 72 this month. But I am an early riser, up by 5 AM, have coffee, get the rig ready to roll, get my wife to turn loose of her pillow and get dressed. (she can nap in the truck I figure) Then about 11 AM we will stop for an hour to eat, get out and walk around, cast a lure or two and head back out on the road. Most days we stop by 5 PM, be it at a campground or a boondock spot along side a lake or stream. Build a campfire, eat dinner and sit outside most evenings if the weather and bugs will allow.
So many people fly up to Anchorage which is real close to Alaska, LOL, and rent a motorhome, then spend a couple of weeks touring the state and fly back home. They have a great time, or at least most report they did. Many of these people will be back in the future to spend more time in certain locations. We all have to use the amount of time and money we have available to make any RV trip.
I have never heard anyone say they are sure glad they waited till old age to make the trip of a lifetime to Alaska. No, most younger people, in good health will tell you how glad they are they went, even though they would have liked to have had more money, more time, while their kids were young enough to go with them and have those experiences for the rest of their lives to think about. It is all very personal. In the 52 years I have been driving the Alaska Highway, I have made trips when I had the full cost of the vacation in the bank and used cash and my debit card for the trip. Earlier in life, before I got married, there were trips I made to Alaska, when I ran out of money for gas, food and lodging along the way and had to stop and get day jobs along the way. A couple of times I didn't have enough money to enter Canada and had to get a job in Montana and other border states. Back then you had to have $300 to show to the border officer.
Lucky for me, I grew up on a ranch in southern Oklahoma and there are lots of things I can do marginally enough to get hired for a few days. LOL The entire point of all this verbiage is no matter what the situation on time or money, I don't regret a single one of those trips. Some of those trips where I was in a hurry and broke, are the ones I smile about when they pop into my memory.
If a person has waited till they are 75 or older to make their first trip, then they will want to stay longer as this may well be their only trip to the north country due to age. But for a younger person, just go and spend what time you have, consider a fly and rent or a fly and tour. Lots of ways to still enjoy the north country without driving your own RV there.
