Archive for the ‘North America’ Category

we stayed at Valdez for 2 nights and somehow we managed to eat at this place 2 times. This is not a fancy place and that’s what great about it, its really big and there is a good selection of dishes, food is simple but good and dish size is huge – so you will eat a lot. staff is really friendly (although i can guess staff changes every summer since none of them was local)

The place is Located right at the small boat harbor (on the waterfront street)
201 north harbor drive, Valdez

 

While in Alaska you will probably see some bears (in Denali NP, or wherever) but they will be a bit far from you, if you want to try a closer encounter you should try one of the bear viewing tours available, these tours usually include a flight (helicopter , small plane or water plane) to a remote location and some hours hiking there.
This activity is not cheap (450-700usd PP) but it is a unique experience – one thing i would recommend is having this trip at the end of the trip as possible, since you may see enough bears even from close and then you can really save the money (we saw some bears walking on the road a week later in Yukon)

 

When visiting Halifax at Nova scotia you should spend a few hours at the citadel, it is a really great way to explore the city history and learn about it more, many guides there will be happy to talk to you. every hour you can see the guards change and at noon there is a canon firing to tell the city it is exactly 12:00

 

 

When on a cruise ship from Alaska to Vancouver/ Seattle (or the other way, you will stop at Skagway – there are a lot of tours you can take any place you stop while cruising but at that place one of the main attractions is taking the train to whitepass at Yukon territory – its costs about 150usd or so. we decided to do this trip on our own and it was amazing – we rented a car at the local Avis (90usd a day) and drove 70 miles to Emerald lake (right next to the railroad anyway) – on the way we saw many bears just walking on the road, we stopped at many   view points which were unreal – just rugged as it can be, we had a stop also at carcross desert which is the smallest desert in the world, at Yukon suspension bridge and at emerald lake we turn back and drove the 70 miles back – it was a great 6 hours trip.

 

During our trip to Alaska we stayed mainly at B&B’s and we enjoyed it very much – most of them were really good (much better than your average hotel room) and meeting the people was great.

One bed & breakfast which we really enjoyed was the one in Homer (Homer itself is a great city as well with great views and tons of activities – so make sure you stay there for a few days) – we stayed 3 nights at a cabin at Maria’s Majestic view B&B.

The view was amazing (see below – taken at 1AM) , Maria was super nice, the cabin was great and breakfast was excellent (especially on the day Maria cooked and we had some really cool stuff like the Alaskan pancake (see below).

 

 





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