Denali National Park/Melissa Trainer
I was very fortunate last week because the State of Alaska invited me to attend the Alaska Media Road Show. Held at the luxurious Four Seasons Biltmore in Santa Barbara, this annual event brings together top travel writers and key players in Alaska’s tourism industry.
As many of you know, I write quite a bit about Alaska. I lived there with my family and we traveled extensively throughout the state while we were there. We covered a lot of territory and ventured to many amazing remote locations during that time. We knew that we could be self sufficient with our travel trailer and we utilized our trailer to the max. We knew that amenities were few and far between on many of the remote roads, so we learned to pack accordingly. Our trailer was an absolutely priceless tool for navigating the region.
Even though our three children were all under the age of 11 at the time, we were all willing to take the road less traveled. We drove to Denali National Park and camped there for a long weekend. We toured the Kenai Peninsula and visited many towns. We camped in Seward on numerous occasions and marveled at the cruise ships as they coasted into town. While traveling to all these places, we charted our own course and we got a great understanding of what life in Alaska is all about.
When I met with each representatives from The Last Frontier, I only had fifteen minutes to chat, hence I tried to capture the latest news and the most exciting developments in their company, their park service, or their association. Everyone was delightfully enthusiastic and willing to help me relay information to you. One of my missions while writing about Alaska is to help others from the Lower 48 learn how to chart their course of travel up there.
I have a lot of information to relay to everyone, but in the meantime I am going to simply post the official links from just SOME of the folks that I met with. I met with more than 20 representatives in one day, but to get started I am sharing just a few of the links…Rest assured that I will be sharing more here and on my own site once I wade through the mountains of information that I gathered.
Kenai Peninsula Tourism Marketing Council
Sitka Convention and Visitors Bureau
Valdez Convention and Visitors Bureau
Anchorage Convention and Visitors Bureau
–Melissa A. Trainer