Our Alaska Adventure with our T@G

MrGGBrown

This (long) post is all about our experience taking our T@G to Alaska, and then cross-country to Florida. I’m hoping to help people thinking about doing something like this, or maybe expose this as an option to others who have never considered it. In summary, we put our trailer on the Alaska ferry in Bellingham, WA (just north of Seattle), camped at several stopover points in Alaska, then drove from Skagway AK all the way to Sanibel Island, FL (a name you might recognize if you've followed hurricane Ian). The remainder of this post will provide the details. I’d be happy to answer questions for anyone considering some portion of this trip.

The first leg of our trip was the Alaska ferry. We loaded our car and T@G on the ferry (Matanuska) in Bellingham on July 27th, bound for Ketchikan, AK. The Alaska ferry was an absolutely awesome experience, but not a cheap one. The ferry charges for automobiles based on lineal feet, with our car & trailer combo measuring at 28 feet. Our total ferry charges were just over $5,000 for all 3 legs of this trip, with 2 people and no cabins. We had hoped to sleep in our T@G, but Coast Guard regulations will not allow people to stay on the car deck. Renting a cabin for the 2-night voyage to Ketchikan would have added over $1,000, and in doing research many people said the full experience was camping out on the deck, which is what we chose to do. The weather and scenery were both incredible for our 2-day trip to Ketchikan. The galley on the ferry provides good quality food at reasonable prices, so we ate well. People we spoke to told us the cabins didn’t have adequate air conditioning (it was in the mid-80’s for this trip), nor air flow, and were so hot and stuffy they couldn’t sleep, so we were happy with our tenting decision. We met many friendly people and even had a guy buy us both beers for the first time in our lives.

Rear loading door of the ferry in Bellingham

Queued in the ferry line (They want you there 3 hours before sailing)

Our car and T@G on the car deck heading to Ketchikan

Tents on the back deck of the ferry, secured to the deck with duct tape as it can get windy

We camped for 3 nights in Ketchikan at Signal Creek Campground. One of the challenges with planning this trip is working around the ferry schedules. They don’t run the same routes every day, so you have to adjust your plans to match the ferry schedule. We were most concerned about rain while camping in Ketchikan, but it turned out to be mostly dry for our stay, which we really appreciated. It was also nearly bug-free, which we didn’t appreciate that much at the time, but did later in the trip.

Our campsite in Ketchikan

Downtown Ketchikan Alaska

We did have some less-positive camping experiences:

• The campground had no running water, and the cistern was empty, so we had to use bottled water.
• The pit toilets weren’t serviced regularly so we learned to take our TP with us (along with bear spray).
• There was a man in the campground who likely was just released from prison. He had a tent and sleeping bag, but nothing else. He came to our camp a couple times asking for things. He was very pleasant, and we felt sorry for him, but it “creeped” my wife out because he seemed pretty desperate.
• There was another person in the campground who seemed to be having a mental episode. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, leading another camper to call the police. It all settled down without incident, but was also unnerving, especially combined with the released prisoner.

I guess the moral to this is to be prepared when camping in Alaska. It might not be your typical experience.

Back on the ferry (Kennicott) for the overnight trip to Junea. Another awesome experience, though this time we joined others in just finding a place to roll out our sleeping bag instead of setting up the tent. This may sound strange, but it’s common for people to sleep throughout the ferry in chairs rather than rent a cabin. We met many friendly people again.
We camped for 5 nights at Mendenhall Campground in Juneau. A little longer than we wanted to stay, but that’s the way the ferry schedules worked out. We had none of the same bad experiences at this campground, but it rained on us almost the entire week (and this was the first week of August). We had to go to Fred Meyer and get another big tarp because the PahaQue side tent wasn’t up to that much rain. The campground, not surprisingly, was mostly deserted, likely because of the weather. We did notice fresh bear scat on the road near our campsite, but never saw a bear. My wife thinks she smelled one outside our trailer one night, but otherwise no issues.

Our blue-tarp campsite. The weather forecast was for an "atmospheric river"

The Mendenhall glacier

Back on the ferry (Le Conte) for the day trip from Juneau to Skagway. One word of caution about the ferry based on our experience getting out of Juneau. That morning a couple crew members tested positive for Covid and were sent home. That left the ferry short-handed and unable to travel because of Coast Guard regulations. The ferry finally left about 5 hours late, after finding a backup worker so it could sail. But this left us wondering what we would have done if the sailing was cancelled because the next ferry to Skagway was a couple of days later. Seems like you gotta be prepared for last-minute changes to your plans. The only good thing about the delay is that we got to watch the Ironman bikers ride by the ferry terminal. Ironman was having it’s first competition in Juneau that day.

Waiting 5 hours for the Le Conte to load after arriving @ 5am

Sailing into Skagway Alaska - Numerous cruise ships were in every port

In Skagway, we camped at the Garden City RV Park near town for 2 nights. Thankfully no rain the entire time, just a continuous wind. Not sure why, but the RV park was nearly deserted in early August. Maybe either the high fuel prices or lingering Covid concerns. While in Skagway we rode the White Pass & Yukon Route Railway up along the path to the Klondike gold rush, which we would highly recommend. We also drove over to see the historic gold-rush town of Dyea, which is an interesting story, but nothing really remains of the town to see.

We were pretty lonely in the Skagway RV Park - Drying all our tarps after the Juneau rain fest

The train ride up the mountain was incredible

On to the second leg of our trip -- driving part of the Alaska Highway. In preparation for this leg of the trip we had replaced the tires on our T@G, as well as added a new spare. I also replaced the tires, brakes, water pump, and belt on the car. I added a mount to the tongue of the T@G for a 5-gallon gas can, as our research told us regular access to gas could be a problem. As you likely know, towing the trailer significantly impacts fuel economy. The range with our Acura RDX towing the T@G is about 225 miles. It turned out our biggest issue was the requirement for premium fuel, which is not readily available along the Alaska highway. The road itself was actually in much better condition than many of the roads in the lower 48. It was very wide and paved with chip-seal, had no potholes, but was mostly without any painted lines. We had no flat tires, nor windshield rock chips during the drive, which are typically the biggest concerns. You can drive for many miles without seeing another car, which is awesome. I highly recommend “The Milepost”, which is a mile-by-mile highway log of the trip published annually if you plan on doing this drive.

Our first driving day was from Skagway to Watson Lake, Yukon. We had done our ArriveCAN registration, so crossing into Canada was not a problem. We stopped in Jakes Corner, Yukon for gas, which turned out to be a very good decision. We didn’t know it at the time, but this station was the lowest cost gas we found anywhere on the highway and had premium. Fortunately, I also filled our 5-gallon can at this station. BTW – when I say gas station, what I mean is large above-ground fuel tanks with a pump in a gravel parking lot, with no attendant or other services.

We stopped for the day in the town of Watson Lake, which is home to the sign-post forest and the Northern Lights theatre. We watched the show at the Northern Lights theatre and learned a lot about the underlying science. We were fortunate enough to see the real northern lights that night from the RV park for the very first time. This was a quick overnight stop as we had seen everything in town and the mosquitoes were terrible in the RV park.

Watson Lake sign-post forest

The second day we drove from Watson Lake, Yukon to Fort Nelson, BC. We had a couple significant experiences of Alaska road construction this day. When they do road construction in Alaska, they rebuild the entire road. This requires people driving thru the construction area to drive over rough, dirt/gravel roads following a pilot car, sometimes for miles. As you’ll see in the picture, our trailer became a muddy mess. Fortunately, the RV park we stayed at in Fort Nelson had an RV wash station with high-pressure water to remove most of the mud from the trailer.

Our muddy T@G after going thru road construction, stopped near Muncho Lake

Our third and final day driving the Alaska highway was from Fort Nelson to Dawson Creek, BC, which is officially the start of the Alaska highway heading north.

At this point you’re probably tired of reading, and I’m getting tired of typing, so I’ll quickly summarize the remainder of our trip.

• Dawson Creek to Hinton/Jasper KOA (we had a significant windshield vs rock event that day)
• Camped in Jasper National Park for a couple days – highly recommended
• Drove south from Jasper on the Icefield Parkway – absolutely incredible scenic drive with many glaciers visible right from the highway. Don’t miss this if you’re in the area.
• Crossed back into the US in northern Montana and stayed in Shelby, MT
• Shelby to Billings, MT where we had our badly broken windshield replaced
• Camped in the Billings KOA for a couple days - The very first KOA in existence
• Billings to Badlands National Park, SD – via Sturgis and Mt Rushmore
• Camped in Badlands N.P. for a couple of days
• Badlands to Blue Lake KOA (IA)
• Blue Lake KOA to Lake of the Ozarks State Park, MO
• Camped in Lake of the Ozarks S. P. for 3 days
• Lake of the Ozarks S.P. to Nashville KOA
• Stayed in the Nashville KOA – Broadway in Nashville is getting almost like Burbon Street
• Nashville to Marietta, GA to visit relatives – Stopped at the Jack Daniels distillery
• Marietta to Jennings, FL KOA
• Jennings KOA to Clearwater, FL KOA
• Clearwater KOA to Periwinkle Park on Sanibel Island
• Camped at Periwinkle Park waiting for our Airbnb reservation on 9/1

Our entire trip was 36 days (July 27th – Aug 31st) and 5513 driving miles (and several thousand ferry miles) from the time we left Bellingham, WA until we arrived on Sanibel Island, FL. We didn’t stay in a hotel the entire trip, so slept all but 4 nights (the ferry and relatives) in the T@G. We were definitely ready for a regular bed at the end of the trip, but never got so tired of the trailer that we resorted to a hotel.

And now the epilog to this trip report, and at least part of the reason for the delayed posting. Just over 3 weeks after we arrived in Sanibel, so did hurricane Ian. Being from the Pacific Northwest, we had never experienced a hurricane, but based on our best judgement we decided to evacuate. We headed to the east coast of Florida to stay with friends but left the Acura and T@G parked in a storage lot in Ft Myers, which we assumed was safe. The manager of the storage lot said they had never seen water deeper than the door thresholds… Well yeah. The eye of the hurricane went almost directly over the area, wiping Sanibel Island out almost entirely, and flooding our storage lot in Ft Myers. As I write this, we’ve still not been able to get into the storage lot to see the damage first-hand. Our assumption is that the Acura and our beloved T@G, which we just took on the 5,500 journey, are both totaled because of tidal surge flooding. We’ll find out later this week.

Post hurricane aerial image showing the Acura/T@G in the storage lot

JamesDow

Thanks for the Alaska writeup. Thought of maybe going late next summer. Costs were higher than I would anticipate.

Sorry re FL loss. My brother lost his car in Naples. Hope insurance covers all.

Sharon_is_SAM

Glad you had that adventure with your TaG. Very sorry about the exposure to the tidal surge - heart breaking😞

MrGGBrown

Well, as we expected, both the car and trailer were totaled. The car was the worst, as apparently an electrical short from the water resulted in both rear windows being rolled all the way down, which likely allowed waves to fill the car. The trailer wasn't as bad. There were signs of water having been in the under-bed storage area, but not really above that. Not sure if this is because the trailer doors sealed really well, or why. It does seem like the trailer might have floated, as it swung around to 90 deg with the car. The electrical system, including the $800 LiFePo battery was dead, and the 1100w inverter was a little melted.

If a good deal on a 2016 blue-trimmed T@G basic ever comes up, it would be wise to check the VIN (57HTT13S9GS002337) to make sure it's not ours. I have no idea how travel trailer titles are branded as salvage, but it seems likely our trailer will be back on the road again to an (unsuspecting?) buyer.

Tag75605

I’m so sorry to hear about your vehicle and your t@g. Hurricanes are some strange things. They aren’t as predictable, as the forecasters lead us to believe. You were very very wise to evacuate. I once lived 120 miles from the gulf coast and had damage to my home from Hurricane Rita. A few years later I was 150 miles inland and had damage from Hurricane Ike.

Glad you are safe and I hope you can find a t@g and a vehicle to suit your needs.