Photo Credit: Liquid Adventures

Alaska National Park Tours from Anchorage

From Anchorage, you can easily visit 3 of Alaska’s national parks as a day tour (and see one from above!).

Seward, the gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park, is just a 2 hour drive, or 4 hour train ride from Anchorage. The train schedule accommodates visitors who want to ride down, do a day cruise into Kenai Fjords, and return in the evening. Other tours to experience the park include sea kayaking and guided hikes.

Katmai and Lake Clark National Parks are just a floatplane ride away. These parks are only accessible by air, and most tours focus on viewing bears in the park.

And while you may not touch down in the park, you can also flightsee Denali in Denali National Park from Anchorage on a quick 3 hour tour.

The list below are tours to access these parks. Or, here’s a multi-day package that includes a stop in 5 of Alaska’s National Parks.

Seward & Kenai Fjords View All

It’s easy to visit Kenai Fjords National Park as a day trip from Anchorage. It’s just a 2 hour drive or 4 hour train ride.

Season: May - September
$5,850+ (Inside Passage $2,650+)
5 days / 4 nights
Cruise Ship Type: Small Ship Cruises
Ship Name: M/V Sea Star

Set sail for 5 days and 4 nights with the crew of the M/V Sea Star for small ship adven­ture cruis­ing in Prince William Sound, Kenai Penin­su­la or along the Inside Pas­sage. The well-appoint­ed yacht accom­mo­dates just 12 guests, allow­ing for a per­son­al­ized expe­ri­ence where you are the explor­er! Unplug from day-to-day life and soak up the won­ders of Alaska’s amaz­ing coast­line. All meals pre­pared by an on-board chef and fea­tur­ing fresh local  ...more

Season: May - September $99+ 3.5 - 9 hrs

Take a spec­tac­u­lar pri­vate guid­ed hik­ing tour in Seward — where the moun­tains meet the ocean — to explore glac­i­ers and alpine ridges. When you go with Seward Wilder­ness Col­lec­tive, you get a great tour plus a dia­logue with their knowl­edge­able guides about the impacts of cli­mate change, with liv­ing exam­ples right in front of your eyes.

Season: May 25 – Sep 8 $435+ 3+ hrs

Start with a dra­mat­ic flight­see­ing trip in either a heli­copter or ski plane and then get out onto an ancient riv­er of ice for a thrilling glac­i­er explo­ration either hik­ing or climbing.

Season: May 1 - 3rd week of September $449+ 8-10 hrs

Get up close to the Alaskan glac­i­ers and wildlife you came to expe­ri­ence by tak­ing a cruise into Kenai Fjords Nation­al Park on a cus­tom-built cata­ma­ran out of Seward. The dif­fer­ence from oth­er cruis­es, is that you’ll then get off the boat and into a kayak, pad­dle around ice­bergs, and watch for wildlife from your own vessel.

Season: March 8 - Oct 13 $109+ 3.5 hrs - Full Day

Res­ur­rec­tion Bay and Kenai Fjords are great places to see wildlife and glac­i­ers. And Major Marine’s ves­sels, which have cozy heat­ed cab­ins and an out­door view­ing area, can take you out to see both. This fam­i­ly-owned tour oper­a­tor has gone above and beyond to give guests an amaz­ing day on the water since 1990

Season: May 11 to Sep 07 $109+ Half day to full day excursions

For a clos­er, qui­eter, and more peace­ful ver­sion of the Alaskan glac­i­er and wildlife cruise, trav­el by sea kayak. Pad­dle the shore­line of Res­ur­rec­tion Bay, where encoun­ters with sea otters, seabirds, and spawn­ing salmon are com­mon. Choose from a vari­ety of three-hour excur­sions or take a full-day trip.

Season: May 20–3rd week of September Exit Glacier Shuttle $20 | Guided Hikes & Glacier Treks $89+ 2.5 - 9 hrs

Tra­verse the majesty of Exit Glac­i­er by ice hik­ing or ice climb­ing, or opt for a nature hike in the gor­geous ter­rain around Seward, Alas­ka. Nev­er ice climbed or hiked on a glac­i­er? Not a prob­lem. All trips include instruc­tion to get you started.

Season: Mar 14 to Sep 29 4 to 8.5 hrs

This vet­er­an tour oper­a­tor runs a a fleet of fast, mod­ern boats in Res­ur­rec­tion Bay and Kenai Fjords Nation­al Park. You’ll vis­it tide­wa­ter glac­i­ers as you watch for puffins, sea otters, Dall’s por­pois­es, sea lions, and more. Some tours are designed to please bird­ers or shut­ter­bugs, while oth­ers are per­fect for families. 

Season: April - Sept
$4,000 Day Cruise, 8 Hrs Up To 6 Guests | $8,000+ Multi-Day, Up To 6 Guests
Cruise Ship Type: Small Ship Cruises
Ship Name: M/V Caroline

Spend the after­noon, or a few days explor­ing the waters of Res­ur­rec­tion Bay and Prince William Sound aboard the M/V Car­o­line, a beau­ti­ful cus­tom-built yacht set for adven­ture! It’s the per­fect set­ting for a fam­i­ly or small group vaca­tion. Fill your days loung­ing on the fly­bridge, fish­ing, kayak­ing, strolling beach­es and cruis­ing to your next fan­tas­tic destination.

Season: May 19 - Sept 7 $125+ 4 hrs - 7 days

Mem­bers of 1% For The Plan­et, Kayak Adven­tures World­wide strives to ful­fill their mis­sion to inspire an active stew­ard­ship of our nat­ur­al world. Through small group sea kayak tours in Res­ur­rec­tion Bay and Kenai Fjords Nation­al Park, they focus on safe­ty, edu­ca­tion, and con­nect­ing guests with the unique and frag­ile ecosys­tems you’ll visit.

Season: May 1 – 3rd week of September $199+ 3-10 hrs

Take a bou­tique, small-group kayak­ing trip with expe­ri­enced guides at Liq­uid Adven­tures and get close to glac­i­ers in kayaks or pad­dle­boards while look­ing for whales and oth­er marine mam­mals. You can even com­bine your adven­ture with a jet­boat, heli­copter, or wildlife cruise. There’s noth­ing quite like it in all of Alaska!

[{"slug":"seward","title":"Seward Audio Guide"}]

Denali Flightseeing Tours from Anchorage

in 3 hours you can see Denali from the air, the highlight of Denali National Park (vs. a 5-hour drive)

Season: Year Round $215+ 1-5 hours

Trail Ridge Air offers an on-demand per­spec­tive of Alaska’s wilder­ness, with per­son­able and knowl­edge­able pilots. Watch for wildlife, check out mas­sive glac­i­ers, alpine lakes, Denali, or even Lake Clark Nation­al Park. Trail Ridge accom­mo­dates for the busiest of sched­ules, with flights rang­ing from one hour to a full day.

Season: Year round - water landing approximately May 1st - October 5th $175+ .5 to 3 hrs

Explore Alas­ka from above with this fam­i­ly-owned com­pa­ny that oper­ates out of Anchor­age. Options include fly­ing above Denali, Knik and Colony Glac­i­er, the Chugach Moun­tains, and more!

Season: Year Round $175+ 30 min to 3 hrs

Enjoy a bird’s eye view of Alaska’s scenic high­lights on a flight­see­ing tour with Rust’s Fly­ing Ser­vice, where every pas­sen­ger gets a win­dow seat. Tour options include a short 30-minute Anchor­age Flight­see­ing Safari, a flight to Denali, Denali plus a glac­i­er land­ing, and more. Tours begin at Anchorage’s Lake Hood, the world’s busiest sea­plane airport.

[{"slug":"seward","title":"Seward Audio Guide"},{"slug":"anchorage","title":"Anchorage"}]

Katmai or Lake Clark National Park

You can visit Katmai and Lake Clark National Park as a fly-in bear viewing trip from Anchorage.

Season: June 1 - Sept 18 $1350 Day Trips from Anchorage Day trip & multi-day excursions

Brooks Lodge offers their own bear view­ing tours which are less expen­sive than most, and give you more time at Kat­mai Nation­al Park to watch bears feast­ing on sock­eye salmon from sev­er­al view­ing plat­forms. A com­mer­cial flight from Anchor­age takes you to King Salmon where you’ll switch to a small float plane for a quick 20-minute flight to Brooks Camp. After a brief safe­ty ori­en­ta­tion, you can watch bears from sev­er­al view­ing plat­forms, join the  ...more

Season: May 10th – Mid September $1075+ 6.5 to 10 hrs

Hop aboard one of Regal Air’s planes depart­ing from Anchor­age and after a short, scenic flight you can be watch­ing enor­mous brown bears swat salmon from Alaska’s rush­ing waters. Tours vis­it one of two des­ti­na­tions: Lake Clark Nation­al Park or Brooks Falls in Kat­mai Nation­al Park.

Season: May to Mid September $995+ 6 - 10 hrs

Take off by sea­plane for an all-day bear-view­ing expe­di­tion. Fly past glac­i­ers and vol­ca­noes to the brown-bear coun­try of south­west Alas­ka. Your Sea­plane Bear Safari will take you to Brooks Riv­er Falls in Kat­mai Nation­al Park, home of the world ’ s largest salmon run. You can also fly 70 miles south­west of Anchor­age to Lake Clark Wilder­ness Pre­serve for amaz­ing bear view­ing and lux­u­ri­ous accom­mo­da­tions at the Redoubt Bay Lodge. Rust’s, which has  ...more

Season: July 1 - Sept 30 $1250+ per person 6 - 12 hrs

View­ing brown bears in their nat­ur­al habi­tat is one of the most amaz­ing things you can do in Alas­ka. If it’s high on your list, book a flight-see­ing/ bear view­ing trip with Trail Ridge Air, know­ing that per­son­able pilots will take you to where bears splash and fish, and where vis­i­tors run out of words to describe their amazement.

Season: May 01 to Sep 10 $295+ per person 30 min - 3.5 hrs

You’ll take off from Anchor­age, and Alas­ka will open up for you as you appre­ci­ate its vast­ness from the air. Where will you go? That’s up to you! Choose from a vari­ety of tours. Take one of the clas­sics, like flight­see­ing to Denali, or opt to explore one of the state’s hid­den gems. You can also fly to see glac­i­ers, go bear view­ing in Lake Clark Nation­al Park, or work with the pros at Alas­ka Air Ser­vice to cre­ate your own cus­tom itinerary.

[{"slug":"seward","title":"Seward Audio Guide"},{"slug":"anchorage","title":"Anchorage"}]

Explore Further

Expert Advice