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My family and I have decided to travel to Alaska by RV, and have decided when we are going (early May through early September), and have decided how we are going (borrowing a friends RV).  Next up?  How to get to Alaska, meaning, what route do we take, and what in the world do we pack for such a long trip? 

When I began to prepare for our Alaskan adventure, preparing the packing list was truly the most daunting task.  I have three kids, who like to bring lots of stuff.  Then there is me, and as a woman, I also like to bring lots of stuff.  But how do you prepare for a trip of four months?  Furthermore, will we require anything special for the area to which we are traveling? Of course, silly me had visions of huge winter parkas, ski goggles and what not, but I soon learned that Alaska has a summer too, and it is not covered with snow.  Being the list lover that I am, I combed the internet, looking for that perfect list.  I honestly never thought I would find one, instead having to compile my own list, using bits and pieces of other lists.  Alas, I found the ultimate list!  It even had sections for supplies I would have never though of!  Here is the list I used:  http://www.vacation-lists.com/rv-packing-list.html .  I cannot sing it’s praises enough, and I honestly cannot think of one thing that I needed that was not on that list. 

Daunting task number two was planning the route.  Because we were going for four months, we had time to take a few side trips.  But, which ones should we choose?  Since I have no friends who ever did this trip, I really felt I was flying blind.  The first thing I did was search for an itinerary route.  I broke my trip up into three segments:

1) Southern California to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada  
2) Yellowknife to Anchorage, Alaska
3) Anchorage back to Southern California   

While in Alaska, we used Anchorage as a hub for all of our Alaskan travel.  I’ll be upfront here, the Alaskan portion of our journey was not very organized.  However, what it lacked in organization, it made up for in lots of fun!  It was great not having an iron clad schedule to stick to, and quite enjoyable to decide mid highway that we were going to change our plans and do something totally different and off the cuff.  Of course this isn’t always possible, especially when using the Alaska Ferry System, as they require reservations, especially for big RV’s.  But in mainland Alaska, you can do whatever you want, and there is just so much to see and enjoy.  The bulk of our four month vacation was spent in Alaska, with the first two segments of our itinerary done in just over one month.  Originally I thought that would be a mistake, thinking we would get bored of Alaska, and that 3 months was far too long to stay.  Well, I was wrong.  Terribly wrong.  On a few occasions, we spent over a week at certain campgrounds, with our favorite being outside of Denali.  We had such a wonderful time that the week flew by, and we wished we could have stayed even longer.  We found a wonderful campground, and more importantly, wonderful people at that campground.  There were so many things to do, along with a gorgeous pool, and tons of activities, for children and adults alike.  As I am sure all you readers know, there is a certain camaraderie amongst those of us who RV.  We are all brothers of another mother, and I so enjoy spending time with other RV’ers.  I am normally not a huge karaoke fan, but for some reason, I had a blast doing it with other people in the RV park.  This park even had a “grown-up’s party”, where the adults were able to mingle with other adults, while sipping on some wine.  Our trip back to California was a completely different route than how we came, with us visiting Juneau (you must visit the state capital, right?), and traveling south through Vancouver, Washington, Oregon, and back home again.

I used a few different route planning programs, but my favorite was www.freetrip.com .  No, it is not a flashy site, no bells and whistles here.  But they do provide a great trip itinerary, with the option to find RV campgrounds and hotels/motels along the way.  Side note here, even though we were driving around in our “hotel room”, due to the fact that I was traveling with my children, I felt it would be a good idea to occasionally stay in a few hotel/motel rooms.  It was a good change of scenery, got us inside for a bit, and just gave them the change that they needed.  Plus, we did visit some rather large cities (Anchorage, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver), and I personally wanted to check out the nicer hotels.  However, even if you don’t have children, and are on a long RV trip, a few quick hotel stays might be a welcome change.

I also used the “directions” feature at both www.mapquest.com and www.maps.google.com .  All these websites must use the same program, because all three gave me the same basic route, which was somewhat refreshing.  Don’t get me wrong, we did not stick to this itinerary, as we took many side trips.  But we generally followed it, and it was a great resource in time planning.  I was constantly checking the route while we were on the road, and made sure I didn’t stray too far from our main itinerary.  I did have internet access while on the road, and it really was something I needed.  I used a connection card from my wireless carrier, AT&T (was Cingular at the time), and just plugged it into my laptop.  Was this solution perfect?  No, not really.  I found the coverage spotty, and my children found playing their video games to be a bit frustrating.  My boys play MMORPG’s, which require a solid, real-time connection, and we found the AT&T service to lag quite often, with signals dropping out of nowhere.  I would expect this in remote area’s of the Yukon, but never expected it in Salt Lake City.  The ideal way to get a permanent internet connection would be via a satellite.  There are satellites available that mount to the roof of your RV, or some that come as a separate auxiliary unit.  This is, of course, an ideal situation.  Internet available 24/7, with no worries about locating a cellular signal, or having to locate a Starbucks or other comparable organization that offers free WiFi.  Although, it is similar to other satellites in that you must have a view of the southern sky.  However, it is very expensive.  Not only is there the large expense in buying the system, but then you also have to pay monthly for the service, with most companies having two-year contracts that penalize you for breaking it before the two-year period is up.  Because I do not own my RV, I would obviously never get this system.  Even if I did own my RV, I wouldn’t get this system as we don’t RV year round, or frequently enough to justify the expense.  However, for those who use their RV’s all the time, or for those folks lucky enough to be full-time RV’ers, it would be a fantastic solution to your internet needs.
One thing that the maps will not provide is road conditions, or how long it will really take you to drive from Point A to Point B.  Ten miles on a Southern California freeway is much different than ten miles in the Yukon Territory of Canada.  But here again, the internet comes in handy.  You can check local sites for road closures, and visit regional RV message boards for more information.  I will discuss the RV internet message boards later on in this series, but suffice to say, they saved me many times, and I found them to be a wonderful form of support.

In our future installments, we will get into more detail about what were the essential items needed, and what we reasonably could have done without.  We were very lucky in that we have a lot of storage in our Fleetwood American Dream, so we didn’t have to worry about that.  However, on the flip side, the more the bus weighs, the more gas you will buy, as the increased weight lowers gas mileage.
When it comes to realizing what made a trip a success, there are many aspects.  There are the obvious things, like weather, and the lucky things, like your RV not breaking down.  But many people underestimate then need to fully plan out your trip.  Believe me, it is extremely important.  Yes, it is time consuming, and takes a great deal of planning.  However, it is such a relief when you’re on the road, and suddenly realize you need bug spray.  There are no food or drug stores around, but fret not, as you packed a can in your first aid kit.  This happens to be a true story, and there are many more like it.  Being so prepared meant I could enjoy my kids, and enjoy our vacation, and not worry about what I forgot.

Please come back on Thursday, September 11th for our fifth installment, “Alaska, it snows there, right? - The importance of a well planned itinerary”  See you there!