Alaska - Just wing it?

Great plan!

Wing it. We never had/made reservations because we never knew where we might be the next night.

kohldad wrote:
TCers travel a bit different is the reason I'm asking here instead of the Canada/Alaska forum.

Say you are retired and plan on crossing into Canada near Glacier about last week of May and departure date only set by when the snow starts covering everything. Would you just do some basic research and wing the trip? By basic research, I mean be familiar with the different main roads and get a copy of the Milepost. Then let the whims, conditions, and signs take you on the journey of a lifetime. We are familiar with crossing borders so no worries there.

Our usual travel style is pick a distant destination and head that general way. Sometimes we make it, sometimes we get distracted and have to return for work. But one thing we are sure of is we hate reservations and only need a flat spot to park for the night.

Do some basic research, make a list of places would like to see/go to. Keep your journey flexible. The Milepost is a good reference book and is about 98% accurate. We made only one reservation during our entire time in Alaska/ Canada and that was for the Arctic Tour at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Use Google Earth to search for possible over night spot along your route, there's a ton of them and it was never a problem for us. You see something along the way stop and check it out, we found many local places this way.

Wing it! (Sorta) Our only reservation was the Alaska Marine Highway (Ferry System) from Bellingham, Washington, which we highly recommend. If we go again we will not take a room but do what is called "sleeping on deck". In a large enclosed and heated space ypu are able to pitch a tent or just have a sleeping bag on a plastic chaise. Showers and facilities are provided and some limited cooking.
The vessel has cafeteria food which was excellent. You are not allowed to use your rig except for the dog. we got some dry ice for our freezer, The propane has to be shut off, and put the fridge stuff in a couple of wheeled fold-up coolers from Walmart.There are ice machines as in a hotel.
Every day a ferry goes north and south, you are able to schedule getting off for a few days at many of the ports, and catch another ferry north. We stayed awhile in Sitka, it was great, just boondocked a little way out of town, same with Juno.
At the end of the ferry route you drive several hundred miles thru Canada to Tok, Alaska. We found the Milepost to be very useful. All about are gravel pits used to build the roads in which we overnighted frequently. The Forest Service Campgrounds were $5.00 a night with dump stations often, we never stayed in a private camp. Denali was wonderful you drive about 40 miles into the park to the RV camp and then must ride a bus to see most of the rest. It is twice the size of Pennsylvania.
We also spent more than a month on the Kenai Peninsula. We got a lot of good advice from fishing gear shops and other spots for local highlights. We took the ferry south from Seward after 3 months total, no reservation was needed. The ferry cost was about the same as fuel cost and driving time 4 nights and 5 days with no wear and tear on the rig. TC's are just pick-ups with a load, not RV's which are not allowed in many towns, you have to get in a campground and take a bus, because of limited parking. We were never bothered. The folks we met in Alaska could not have been more hospitable. Fuel and supplies were readily available.

Just Wing it.

While the Milepost is informative about the main routes, it barely covers the roads off the beaten path, which we like to explore in our TC, verses boondocking just off a highway.

In addition to the provincial parks in BC (more than 330) and AB ( more than 80) there are provincial Recreation Areas with camping (usually free; a small number of sites 1-5). BC has over 1,200 of these dispersed campsites (a table and a view, sometimes not even a table) that they list as recreation sites. AB has more than 200. Plus there is random camping (aka boon docking) on Crown land. Add to that thousands of trail heads to overnight at and then taking a morning hike before traveling on and you have lots to see. Most of these recreation areas are located on gravel Forestry Roads, with ratings of RV, then auto, then 4wd to inform you of road condition.

Backroads Mapbooks makes detailed map books for these provinces showing the recreation sites. Plus they have a digital version for GPS. Or you can contact the province website and ask if they have Point of interest files (POI) that have the name and gps coordinates for each park or recreation site for download or e-mail delivery so you can put it into your mapping program.

The provincial websites also have lots of on-line tools and interactive maps for locating parks and recreation sites. But access will be limited once you start traveling. Might consider a pre-paid canadian cell phone to avoid outrageous data roaming charges in Canada by US companies.

Also keep in mind Glacier will still have lots of snow in May and only the low elevation portions of the park will be open.

Canadian Topo maps as PDFs can also be down loaded for free.

National Map of Canada - Toporama Choose layers to select information to display

CanTopo and Can Matrix Digital Maps of Canada Choose Themes to select map type (raster) and then select map type to load indices

Camping in AB

AB province base maps 1 to 50,000 scale up to 1 to 2,000,000 scale


Camping and RVing in BC

BC Recreation sites and trails

BC Provincial Parks

iMap BC

BC Topo maps 1 to 20,000 scale available for downloaded free as PDF file

BC Topo maps 1 : 250,000 scale not geocoded downloaded free as PDF file

US Forest Service Topo maps 1 to 24,000 scale (7.5 minute) downloaded free as PDF file

USGS TOPO maps Current maps 7.5 minute. Non-current digital version of raster maps 15 minute and 1 degree downloaded free as PDF file. Go to the layers icon and turn on indices to select topo maps

Wing it.... Only places I would consider making reservations would be places you " want" to stay at. We usually make a reservation for a campground so we can have a shower, wash clothes, dump tanks etc... and then usually only when it is close to a weekend. And then we only make the reservations a day or two before we get to where we want to be.
We like a particular campground in Whitehorse and in Dawson City so those two we do make a quick phone call and book.
There are TONS places to stop over night in Southern BC just have to know where you can't park.
Places you can't park over night for free are.... Provincial and National Parks, private property, Indians land and most cities towns and villages. If been doing it for most of my 60 years so it is possible.
Also there are books you can buy called " Back Road Map Book" that have all the backroad of of some of the Canadian Provinces mapped out. On those maps ( talking BC ) they show BC Forrest service campgrounds which are usually down a gravel logging road at a variety of distances from the main roads. These forest service campgrounds are basic, and usually have a pit toilet and maybe a couple picnic tables. They a rough campground nothing fancy, but they are usually located by some beautiful little lake or stream. I have two books for southern BC as well at the chip for my had held GPS for all of BC. Comes in handy when we are out in the bush on our side x side.
NOTE: some of these roads are rough, steep, windy and narrow, so do some research before you head off 45km down a logging road.
BRMB also carry water proof maps so you can have either a book, or a map. The books are available on Amazon.com, however I haven't found the maps on Amazon, but I do know they ship to the States.
Back Road Map Book.

Soup.

We had everything planned out and it worked out good for us. Talking to a lot of travelers they were just winging it also and not having many problems doing that. The biggest problem was around the holidays and timing on your ferry travels as they don't run every day. I think going without a plan would work as well as having everything planned out. There was a couple times we were very happy to have reservations, seeing people getting turned away, but I only seen that 2 or 3 times in the 2 months we were in Alaska. We also didn't stick entirely to our plan and changed some destinations and dates with no problems. Like someone else mentioned, Denali area was pretty busy and depending on time of year you might want to call ahead of time for staying around there. It was less stress for us knowing where our next destinations were going to be. The one thing I liked about traveling in Alaska in the summer time is it never gets dark so if you get somewhere late it's still easy to find a spot to stay. I've always hated trying to find a boondock spot when it's dark!

We crossed this year at Sweetgrass, MT on May 10th. Went on to Banff, Jasper, Lake Louise, and then Alaska for about three months. WE did NOT make reservations anywhere and only had one night that we could not get into the Russian River National CG due to huge fishing pressure and lots of campers in that area.

Wing it. No problem. No stress.

A little advice, probably not a good idea to drive by any open fuel station on the Alaska highway if you are close to 1/2 or even 3/4 of a tank of fuel. Less stress of a running out situation this way. If you drive a POV that gets 25 - 30 mpg or an RV vehicle with auxiliary fuel storage, this advice does not apply.

Have fun and safe travels.

Lakeside

Wing it, it's not like you will be traveling in the middle of nowhere along the Alaska Highway, its full of travelers.

When we were there in 2016 we made reservations for July 1 in Whitehorse ( Canada Day), July 4 in Valdez AK, and 3 days in Denali. The rest we winged it.
The only regret was after Labour Day on Vancouver island there was no space available at Long Beach Provincial Park. Seems all the boomers were still on the road, just like us! Seems to be getting worse as all us boomers are travelling later in the shoulder seasons.
Brian