Alaska Lodging

Alaska Lodging: Insider Recommendations

Let’s be honest: many visitors consider Alaska lodging to be one of the least compelling values of an Alaska vacation. Alaska hotels are really just a place to sleep (except wilderness lodges and upscale upscale roadside lodges, see below).

The good news is that Alaska’s bigger cities offer a choice of good luxury hotels which run $200-250 a night. The difference is larger rooms, better location, and more amenities (restaurants, health club, business center, etc..) We’re recommending several top options for Anchorage lodging and Fairbanks lodging, all of which are on the newer side or recently-remodeled and are run by strong general managers with a customer service focus.

Denali Park also has a lot of choices, but due to its popularity, is still chronically short of rooms during peak summer (mid-June to mid-August). Hopefully, the high-end, newly-constructed Denali Princess Lodge will ease that. Here’s the inside scoop on your Denali lodging choices, both near the park entrance and deep inside the park, where we’re especially recommending Kantishna Roadhouse this summer.

Alaska’s smaller towns offer fewer hotel choices. But the good news is that enterprising proprietors seem to have built at least one great Alaska lodge in each town. (It wasn’t so ten years ago.) And here they are....

• In Talkeetna, it’s the Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge with stunning Mt. McKinley and Alaska Range views just 2.5 hours from Anchorage
• In Seward, it’s the Seward Windsong Lodge for a national park feel only a few miles from Exit Glacier, it’s the brand new Holiday Inn Express if you want to be in town with views of the harbor, and it’s the Kenai Fjords Wilderness Lodge if you want a remote Alaska lodge accessible only by boat
• In Homer, it’s Land’s End Resort at the end of a 5-mile long spit of land that juts out into beautiful Kachemak Bay, surrounded by mountains and glaciers
• In McCarthy-Kennicott, it’s the romantic Kennicott Glacier Lodge set in a former ghost town and right on a glacier.
• In Girdwood, it’s the The Hotel Alyeska, the anchor attraction in this resort town set in a lush mountain valley 45 minutes south of Anchorage

If you’re not overly price-sensitive and just want the best Alaska experience money can buy, stay at a remote Alaska wilderness lodge. These rare finds combine 21st century luxury with 19th century wilderness. At $300 - $800 a night, they’re no pricier than a high-end New York hotel room—but far more unusual and memorable.