The Best New Alaska Tours for 2022

Despite the uncertain future of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state of Alaska recently took a serious step in cautiously jump-starting its 2022 travel season by awarding more than $10 million to the Alaska Travel Industry Association to help market state tourism to its worldwide clientele.

While the purpose of this grant from the U.S. Department of Economic Development Administration is to provide needed financial assistance over the next several years, many Alaska businesses have already taken the initiative to create new or enhanced tours to entice pandemic-weary travelers. Here’s a look at some offerings for the 2022 season. 

John Hall’s Alaska

In 2022, John Hall’s Alaska will be commemorating 40 years of offering Alaska vacation packages by adding several new or expanded tours.

The nine-day Wild Alaskan Explorer itinerary starts with guided motorcoach transportation to the Kenai Peninsula, with a bonus visit to the coastal fishing community of Homer. Trip highlights include floating the upper Kenai River; exploring Prince William Sound glaciers and wildlife; visiting local breweries; touring a commercial oyster farm; and learning the inside workings of a dog-mushing kennel. The tour concludes with a two-day visit to Denali National Park before boarding The Alaska Railroad for the return trip to Anchorage.

The company’s National Parks of Alaska tour is a comprehensive, wilderness-rich itinerary that visits all eight national parks in Alaska. The 14-day program uses land-, air- and water-based transportation to explore volcanic Katmai, glacier-rimmed Kenai Fjords, salmon-rich Lake Clark and Kobuk Valley national parks. A popular highlight includes the opportunity for a plunge into the Arctic Ocean.

Finally, for the winter enthusiast craving adventure, there’s the Iditarod and Aurora Adventure. The 11-day, early-March itinerary includes popular Fur Rendezvous and Iditarod Sled Dog Race festivities. Clients will visit with mushers before the race, enjoy a flightseeing tour across the Arctic Circle and stop over at an official Iditarod race checkpoint to greet mushers. Travelers indulge in a variety of aurora-viewing events throughout Interior Alaska before enjoying the World Ice Art Championships in Fairbanks. 

Alaska Helicopter Tours

Alaska Helicopter Tours (AHT) is offering an update to its Winter Ice Climbing tour. Guests of all skill levels join experienced glacier-climbing guides on a helicopter flight from the Mat-Su Valley to several hours of guided, frozen waterfall climbs and glacier ice cave exploration. Because each frozen waterfall is unique (many tower 100-plus feet adjacent to ice-carved cliffs), clients will come home with superb bragging rights and social media-worthy photos. The company provides all crampons, boots, hot drinks, helmets, climbing ropes and ice axes. For summer travel, clients can choose ice climbing on glacial ice cliffs in 70- to 80-degree Alaska temperatures.

AHT uses Knik River Lodge as a base camp for those who wish to extend their adventure to include dog-sledding tours on a snowfield, paddleboarding on glacial lakes, backcountry hiking, pack-rafting glacial rivers, glacier hiking and rock climbing. 

Coldfoot Camp 

Located 55 miles north of the Arctic Circle, Coldfoot Camp is one of only a handful of truck stops serving the Dalton Highway. But don’t expect a traditional greasy spoon. This is a destination for clients looking for Alaska culture and history that carries its own brand of adventure.

Travelers should spend a day taking in the camp’s many offerings, from staking out the Frozen Foot Saloon to grabbing a table for food and observation at The Trucker’s Cafe, a popular stopover for colorful haul road truckers driving the Dalton Highway. The camp’s Slate Creek Inn offers simple, yet comfortable, accommodations. With 24 hours of summer daylight, clients will need to get some shut-eye to prepare for several tours.

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The Packraft Adventure is not for the meek of heart or arm. On this daytrip out of Coldfoot, clients backpack their raft half a mile to the Koyukuk River. Weighing in at eight pounds, the inflated raft fits one rider snuggly, yet comfortably, much like wearing a glove that floats. These rafts allow floaters to experience the unparalleled sensation of the Koyukuk’s Class II whitewater rapids. Because pack rafts are paddled easily, clients have greater freedom to explore compared to traditional canoes, rafts or boats. After several hours of rafting, guests go ashore and hike half a mile back to the Dalton Highway for pickup and the return to Coldfoot.

For landlubbers, the camp’s Fat Tire Bike Tour explores the historic Slate Creek Gold Mining Trail that is surrounded on all sides by colorful Arctic tundra and mining artifacts. 

Arctic Dog Adventure Company

For the wilds of Interior Alaska, clients should consider the four- or five-day Tolovana Hot Springs Aurora Tour itinerary by Arctic Dog Adventure Company.

Traveling south from Fairbanks, clients journey to a remote trailhead and learn how to mush and handle a dog team. Guests spend evening hours soaking in the warmth of an outdoor hot spring and basking in the glow of a toasty wilderness cabin fire beneath awe-inspiring aurora borealis displays. 

Go Hike Alaska

The Backcountry Eats & Foraging Treats itinerary offered by Go Hike Alaska provides instruction to clients in two locations — the Chugach Mountains or the Montana Creek area of south-central Alaska. Guides provide an in-the-field foraging experience for in-season wild greens, mushrooms, berries, edible flowers and plants before wrapping up the tour by using backpack stoves to prepare the delicious harvest. When done for the day, clients can check out nearby Denali Brewpub‘s new brewery and tasting room, located on the Talkeetna Spur Road outside of Talkeetna. The menu highlights locally sourced ingredients in addition to the brewery’s noteworthy beers, cider and mead products.