Overlanding Alaska is an epic route. Far more than the sum of its places, it’s a whole experience, and it’s unique. Yes, it bears some similarity to Patagonia, but the culture and history here set it apart. It’s a very long way from anywhere, so is it worth the schlepp? Here we do a bit of general pondering our lessons learned about Alaska, and our dash through Canada en-route.
Alaska is on the way to nowhere. It’s not the kind of place you drop into accidentally. And the drive to get here from anywhere is nothing short of a schlepp. But for us, overlanding Alaska has been well worth making the considerable (second) attempt to get here. The wildlife, the scenery, the nature and the wilderness are stunning. The adventure activities and opportunities are endless. And we’re having a blast meeting up with other overlanders. Here’s our tale of a scoot around the much-driven southern half of Alaska, stopping to do a bit of fishing, to see the wildlife, and to ogle at the odd glacier or two…
In normal times, the Alaska Highway would take us (funnily enough) to Alaska, USA. But in these Covid-border-closed-times, we can go as far as Kluane National Park then we have to turn around. Sounds a bit ‘dead-end’, but the spectacular mountains, lakes, glaciers of the Kluane icefields make it worth the schlepp. And whilst we’re out there in the Kluane wilderness, the local ‘rona virus palaver turns a positive corner – a whole new world of Canadian possibilities starts to open-up for us again…
High on the list of ‘World’s Most Iconic Road Trips’, Chile’s Carretera Austral is a long, scenic drive down the western side of the southern Andes. It runs some 1,200 km south from its start in the city of Puerto Montt. As with Ruta 40 in Argentina, you can’t really say that you’ve ‘driven Chile’ unless you’ve done ‘The Carretera’. So here we go… starting our Carretera Austral Blog, where else, but at the end.
Stunning views along The Carretera
Inconveniently for us, the sights to be seen as we head north up the Andes sit alternately either side of the Argentine/Chile border, requiring more frequent border crossings than we would normally care to tackle. From Torres del Paine in Chile we now need to cross back into Argentina, first destination: the Perito Moreno Glacier and it’s gateway town of El Calafate. This glacier is another of South America’s most visited tourist attractions and the border crossing is therefore choked with coach-loads of tourists. We get caught in a frustratingly long queue, but finally Continue reading
We’re going to be doing a lot of ‘heading north’ in 2016, so from Punta Arenas we’re starting the New Year as we mean to go on… heading north! The (extremely) vague plan for the next few weeks is to zig-zag randomly between Chile and Argentina, up western Patagonia and the southern Andes. This will be our introduction to South America’s proper mountains. It’s a well-trodden route, up the Carretera Austral in Chile and Ruta 40 in Argentina. There’s a lot of Continue reading
We could gush ridiculously about Antarctica but there simply aren’t enough superlatives in the English language to do so. Let’s start this Antarctica cruise blog with a simple ‘Wow!’ and take it from there… Continue reading