About Anchorage, Alaska
Anchorage is a cosmopolitan city in Alaska. With a population of over 300,000, it is the largest city in Alaska, and is located in the Southcentral region. Anchorage is a municipality: essentially a combined city and county. The city itself defined by Muldoon Road to the east, Rabbit Creek Road to the south, and Cook Inlet to the north and west. Several small suburbs are within the Municipality of Anchorage, while physically outside the City of Anchorage.
Arriving in Anchorage
Anchorage is served by most major American airlines. Air travel is the cheapest and most efficient form of transportation in and out of the state. Non-stop flights are available from Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Taipei year-round, and more locations in the summer. Many arriving and departing out-of-state flights are late-night "red-eyes," but there are often many daytime flights to and from Seattle. Anchorage recently completed extensive remodeling and construction at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport(IATA: ANC) (ICAO: PANC)[web] to help accommodate the upsurge in tourism (unofficial sources have estimated the numbers for 2004 at some four million tourists arriving in Alaska between May and September).
Anchorage is also accessible from the contiguous U.S. (locally referred to as "the Lower 48") and Canada via road. The Alaska Highway starts in northern British Columbia and terminates in Fairbanks. You can either get to Anchorage via the Parks Highway from Fairbanks or the Glenn Highway from Tok (the first major Alaskan town after crossing the Canadian border). The Seward Highway serves traffic entering Anchorage from the Kenai Peninsula to the south and its Alaska Marine Highway System terminals.
Make sure to pick up a copy of The Milepost, which is widely regarded as the premiere road guide for western Canada and Alaska. Most roads in these regions have small white posts every mile or so indicating the number of miles from the start of the road. The Milepost has extremely detailed route descriptions of all of the roads, pointing out everything from scenic viewpoints and campgrounds down to the names of small creeks the roads pass over. If you're flying in to Anchorage and then driving around the state, wait and pick up a copy of The Milepost at one of the local Costcos or WalMarts--the price there is around half of list price.
Many cruise lines provide transportation from their terminals to Anchorage and may even include tours or your return air travel out of the state.
Orientation of Anchorage
While not nearly comparable to the size of major world cities, the developed part of the Municipality of Anchorage (the city itself is several thousand square miles, but much of it is uninhabited and mountainous) is fairly spread out and not very walkable--with the exception of the compact downtown area.
Most of Anchorage is built on a grid system laid out by originally by the railroad: numbered streets run east-west, starting at First Avenue in the extreme north of the city (at the Port and train depot) and ending up in the mid-hundreds at the south edge of town. Lettered streets run north-south, starting at A Street in the middle of downtown and going up to the west; east of A Street, the street names begin with sequential letters and are named after Alaskan cities and towns (Barrow, Cordova, Denali, etc.). This makes finding yourself on a map fairly easy, although the system gets less coherent outside of the downtown area. Note that the Seward Highway becomes Gambell and Ingra streets, while the Glenn Highway becomes 5th and 6th Avenues.
You'll often hear Anchorageites use the following terms when describing areas of town - these areas were originally separate communities that merged as the city grew:
- Downtown: the historic core of the city located at the northwestern tip next to the waterfront; home to most of the tourist activities, gift stores, hotels, and the railroad depot
- Midtown: the largely commercial area immediately south of Downtown roughly between 15th Avenue and Tudor Road (becoming more industrial south towards Dimond Boulevard)
- South Anchorage: Dimond Boulevard and south. Largely suburban and residential with some major commercial development west of the Seward Highway.
- West Anchorage: area along the water southwest of Downtown, encompassing the historic Bootlegger's Cove residential area and the famous Earthquake Park
- Spenard: sandwiched between Midtown and West Anchorage and spilling over and overlapping the boundaries a bit, it was formerly a separate city and catered to the racier aspects of Anchorage living. It's still a bit of a red-light district, especially along Spenard Road itself. Be careful at night. (The airport is at the extreme west end of the Anchorage peninsula and abuts the southwestern edge of Spenard.)
- East Anchorage: everything east of the Seward Highway and north of Tudor Road. Mostly residential.
- Hillside: part of South Anchorage, it's everything east of the Seward Highway and south of Abbott Road. Completely residential, and many homes there are on the ritzier side ($350k and up to over $1.5M, where the average home is about $220k). Anchorageites think of the Hillside like Angelenos do of Beverly Hills--if you own a home there, you must be doing well, even if the trees (or your snowmachine trailer) block your view of the lesser people below). Above the Hillside homes is the immense Chugach State Park, popular for easily accessible hiking. (The most-hiked mountain in Alaska, Flattop Mountain, is fairly easily accessed via the Glen Alps parking area at the top of Upper Huffman Road.)
- Eagle River, Chugiak, Peters Creek: bedroom suburbs north of the city. Residential only, but provide access to the State Park, especially the Eklutna lake.
- Bird, Indian, Girdwood: small communities south of the city along the Seward Highway. Very small, tourist service oriented.
Getting Around in Anchorage
Anchorage's Ted Stevens International Airport is serviced by all of the major national rental car chains as well as a number of independents. A few companies have off-airport locations. Renting from these locations avoids the 11-12% airport concession recovery fee and $4.87 per day airport facility fee. If you're arriving in the summer, plan ahead, as most rental companies are pretty much sold out from mid-June through the end of August. In the summer, cars are often not available without reservations, and even if they are, be prepared to pay top-dollar for them, especially four-wheel-drive vehicles. Click to find car rentals for Anchorage.
Two main taxi companies serve the Anchorage area: Alaska Yellow Cab and Checker Cab; another company called Aurora Taxi seems to be making a growing appearance. The airport maintains a taxi stand on the arrivals level. As of late 2007, the municipality-set rate for all taxis is $2.00 for the flag drop and $2.00 per mile; the time-based rate is $.50 per minute. The average fare to downtown runs about $15 one way.
Many hotels offer also courtesy shuttle vans that stop at the airport near the taxi stand. Several courtesy phone banks are located inside the baggage claim areas.
If you're determined to save money, you can use the PeopleMover, Anchorage's bus system. [14] As of late 2007, fares are $1.75 per trip or $4 for a day pass. Most bus routes have one bus in each direction per hour, but some routes increase it to two buses per hour during peak times. Buses are frequently late. Route 7 of the PeopleMover, Anchorage's bus system, has a stop located at the far south end of the airport taxi stand area. Every hour, there is one bus going downtown and one bus going to the Dimond Center mall in south Anchorage. If you're riding the bus to the airport, note that only half of the trips on Route 7 stop at the airport, so look for the airplane icon on the bus route display.
Anchorage features an extremely well-developed bike trail system, with over 200 miles of developed trails (120 of which are paved) winding their way throughout the city's parks and three green belts. The popular Tony Knowles Coastal Trail parallels the waterfront from Downtown to Kincaid Park near the airport. Several companies offer bike rentals and trail tours. In the winter, many of the trails are groomed and used as ski trails.
Drivers tend to be aggressive in Anchorage year round, and many of the roads are heavily damaged by severe winter conditions and the use of studded tires. If you are visiting in winter and not used to driving in winter conditions, be very cautious, do not pass, keep excessive following distance, and allow plenty of time to stop. If it's snowing, no matter what time of the day, have your headlights on (the Seward Highway south of Anchorage requires headlights to be on at all times). Keep in mind that a roadway covered with black ice may look completely dry, but provide no traction whatsoever.
More Info on Anchorage
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