2023 Travel Season: 21 Days in AK and 2.5-Month Rocky Mountain Road Trip

The 2023 Travel Season was one for the books! It had firsts, including the first season we boarded a plane for a road trip and the first season split between two very distinct North American road trips. It was also the first season in which we took more than one week off at a time — three weeks off for our Great Alaskan Road Trip — plus the first season without a month-long stay (and with one 5-star stay!).

From June 24th to October 15th, our 2023 Travel Season covered 6400 miles (just counting mileage between stops), took us to 11 US national parks and 5 CA national parks, and gave us 30 different towns and cities to call home for anywhere from 1 to 21 nights.

It all kicked off with our 21-Day Great Alaskan Road Trip, where we were on a mission to visit all 8 of Alaska’s national parks in one trip. Then, after a quick regroup in Dallas to unpack and repack, we took off on a 2.5-month road trip following the US and Canadian Rockies. It was our most ambitious travel season yet, and was more incredible than we ever could have imagined!

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Planning Our 2023 Season

In 2019, we took roadtrips to Virginia and North Carolina to visit friends and family, staying in various short-term rentals for one or two weeks at a time.

In 2020, we went all in on travel and spent the majority of the year on the road (bouncing between month-long+ stays in places like Virginia Beach, VA, Charlotte, NC, and Bryson City, NC — and spending 6 weeks in New Mexico).

In 2021, the “travel season” was born. We spent 3.5 months on the road, exploring Colorado, Utah, and northern Arizona.

In 2022, our travel season took us to the Northeast United States and Ontario, Canada, for 5 months.

For 2023, we had some lofty goals!

We were interested in taking a month-long sabbatical after saving up a large number of vacation days. We also wanted to continue visiting national parks across the United States. We’re not necessarily on a mission to see all in a certain amount of time, but we’d love to visit each park eventually, so we’re always looking for trips that can include at least one or two parks. We were also planning a winter trip to Yellowstone National Park, one of our favorite places in the world, and were toying with the idea of seeing Yellowstone in every season in one calendar year.

Normally, we plan our next travel season around January of that same year. That’s when we’ll start narrowing in on where we want to go, booking lodging, and researching the best things to see and do in the area. However, we knew by the end of our 2022 Season that we wanted to possibly make Alaska happen the following year. We were looking at vacation days, realizing we had many saved, and when my parents offered to watch Lincoln so we could fly there instead of drive, it was a done deal. We started planning the Alaska portion of our season while we were staying outside of Acadia National Park at the end of our 2022 Season.

Planning our Great Alaskan Road Trip was a beast. It’s by far our biggest trip to date, and the logistics of trying to reach Alaska’s 8 national parks took a lot of time to sort through and line up. Plus, although we were planning far in advance in our standards, most people start planning an Alaskan adventure at least one year in advance. And if you want to visit Katmai National Park and stay at the Brooks Lodge, you need to be planning 1.5 years in advance. So, we were playing catch up, trying to organize our route, secure lodging, and squeeze 8 different parks into one itinerary.

And that was just for Part One of our season!

For Part Two, we decided on a 2.5-month Rocky Mountain Road Trip after kind of going all-in on this bucket list season. We knew we’d be interested in seeing Yellowstone National Park in the summer and fall, and I’ve long wanted to drive the Icefields Parkway and spend a night at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise. From there, we realized we could essentially follow the Rockies, picking them up in Denver and driving through the Tetons, Yellowstone, Glacier, and as much of the Canadian Rockies as possible. We picked Jasper National Park, the end of the Icefields Parkway and a highlight destination in its own right, as our turnaround spot. It just happened to work out perfectly that we could retrace our steps and end up at Albuquerque’s Balloon Fest on the same day the total solar eclipse would pass by before returning to Dallas. Magic.

What Went as Planned / What Didn’t

Ultimately, a lot of the things we wanted to do during this season worked out really, really well. We visited all 8 of Alaska’s National Parks. (Arguably our biggest win of the season! It almost didn’t happen, though, when the weather took a turn the morning of our flight to Kobuk Valley National Park.)

We also were able to visit Yellowstone in all four seasons: winter, spring, summer, and fall. We watched the Solar Eclipse from Balloon Fiesta Park during the 2023 Albuquerque Balloon Fest. And we had an absolutely magical 24 hours at the Fairmont Chateau in Lake Louise.

In total, we visited 11 US national parks—Glacier Bay, Kenai Fjords, Wrangell-St. Elias, Kobuk Valley, Gates of the Arctic, Katmai, Denali, Lake Clark, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, and Glacier National Parks—and 5 Canadian national parks—Banff, Yoho, Glacier, Jasper, and Waterton Lakes National Parks.

Plus, we crossed a whole lot of things off our bucket lists, such as the aforementioned 8 Alaskan parks, spending a night in the iconic Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, morning ascension at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, and seeing Yellowstone NP in all four seasons in one calendar year, but also… glacier dog sledding, ice climbing, catching a glimpse of Mount Denali, whitewater rafting, watching bears fish for salmon at Brooks Falls, sunrise canoeing on Lake Louise, driving the Icefields Parkway, hiking to Hidden Lake in Glacier NP (& finally getting to see the lake after 100% fog during our 2015 trip, ha!), and seeing Yellowstone NP in all four seasons in one calendar year.

Certainly, a few things didn’t go according to plan, most notably being we never made it to Moab in between our stays in Driggs, ID, and Grand Junction, CO. We had a campsite booked in Moab and were planning to drive through Arches National Park. We’d been back in 2021 but wanted to swing through again on our way to Grand Junction to focus specifically on Arches’ Scenic Drive. However, about an hour from Arches, we turned around and headed straight for Grand Junction instead. We’d be arriving late into our Moab campsite, having to set up our car camp in the dark, then spending all of the next day driving through Arches and driving to Grand Junction. Jonathan, unfortunately, got called into the office for an onsite meeting the following Monday, which meant a day of rest in Grand Junction was much more appealing than another full day of travel.

That’s another thing that didn’t go according to plan— the onsite meeting Jonathan had to attend fell during our week in Grand Junction to enjoy Colorado Wine Country. We missed out on wine country during our 2021 Season, so were looking forward to a week of wineries and peach orchards. When Jon was called into work, our plans shifted and Lincoln and I spent a week in Grand Junction ourselves while Jon was back in Dallas.

In Alaska, we did get to land in Kobuk Valley National Park, but we couldn’t land on the Kobuk Sand Dunes. We were hoping to get out of the plane on the Kobuk Sand Dunes and have about thirty minutes to explore. Ultimately, we were able to land on a nearby lake and step out of the plane onto the rafters for just a couple of photos. We then flew over the Kobuk Sand Dunes so we could take in the bird’s eye view but had to quickly move on due to an incoming storm.

Katmai National Park was also touch-and-go when our water taxi from King Salmon to Brooks Camp was cancelled the morning we were at the airport on our way to King Salmon. An “Amazing Race”-like thirty minutes followed, and somehow, this mishap actually worked out in our favor as we were able to secure a second night at Brooks Camp when forced to take a charter plane instead of the water taxi. This is one of my favorite stories from our Great Alaskan Road Trip; Read about it here!

We also never made it to the Point of Adolphus near Gustavus. A kayaking with whales trip we booked out of Point of Adolphus, and a wildlife boat tour (two separate companies and separate bookings) both canceled on us. Point of Adolphus is one of the best places in the world for whale watching, so… next time?!?!

All in all, it was an absolute highlight year for us and a travel season I still can’t believe was real. Here’s what it looked like and everything we were able to explore!

2023 Travel Season Itinerary

For our Great Alaskan Road Trip, we spent three nights in Gustavus • four nights in Seward • two nights in McCarthy • one night in Fairbanks • two nights in Coldfoot • one night at the Chena Hot Springs • one night in Anchorage • two nights at Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park • three nights in Denali • & one night in Anchorage.

For our Rocky Mountain Road Trip, we spent one week in Denver • three nights in Grand Teton National Park • one night in Yellowstone National Park • three weeks in Calgary, Canada • two nights at the Lake Louise Soft-Sided Campground • one night at Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise • one night at the Silverhorn Creek Campground • two nights at the Crossing Resort along the Icefields Parkway • three nights in Jasper • one night at Waterton Lakes National Park • one week in Kalispell, MT • three weeks near Grand Teton & Yellowstone National Parks (Driggs, ID, Gardiner, MT, West Yellowstone, MT, and Canyon Village) • one week in Grand Junction, CO • & one night in Albuquerque for the International Balloon Fiesta.

21-Day Great Alaskan Roadtrip

This was such a special trip. We took three weeks completely off to see as much of Alaska as possible and signed ourselves up for a whole bunch of new adventures and activities while there.

We started with a flight from Dallas through Seattle and Juneau to Gustavus, AK. There, we spent three days touring Glacier Bay National Park.

Then, we flew from Gustavus through Juneau to Anchorage, where we picked up a rental car and drove Seward Highway to Seward. We spent four days exploring Kenai Fjords National Park.

From Seward, we drove to McCarthy (along the infamous McCarthy Road) to spend two days in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. After a quick pitstop in Fairbanks, we then made it to Dalton’s Highway, the Arctic Circle, and Coldfoot, AK, for a flightseeing tour of Kobuk Valley and Gates of the Arctic National Parks.

We spent one night getting some much-needed R&R at the Chena Hot Springs Resort before driving to Anchorage for our flight to King Salmon and Brooks Camp. We spent two days at Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park before driving George Parks Highway to Denali. After three days, we had one final stop in Anchorage for a flightseeing tour to Lake Clark National Park.

Along the way, we went ice climbing, dog sledding, glacier hiking and kayaking, fishing for salmon, soaking in hot springs (& jumping in glacier pools), and white water rafting. We took bush planes to some of the most remote national parks in the world. (At one point, we experienced our very own version of the TV show ‘Alone’ when our pilot dropped us off in Gates of the Arctic National Park with just a promise to return in 5 hours. We were entirely on our own - there was no one for miles and miles and miles - and without cell service or GPS tracking.) We stood feet from some of the largest grizzly bears in the world, drank hot chocolate while watching glacier calving from a kayak in the middle of the sea, and were even chased by a sea lion on our way to a place called ‘Pleasant Island,’ ha!

We slept in an airport garage, left camera batteries in Airbnbs, accidentally threw away memory cards, used the restroom in a shared outhouse, got caught in a bear jam, developed a toe infection, tore holes in our boots, and attempted to camp outside with just a store-bought sleeping bag in low 40-degree weather (before ultimately moving to the car).

Alaska is the most incredible and wild adventure we’ve had yet. It was also by far the hardest road trip we’ve ever had to plan and the most expensive trip we’ve been on. We wrote all about our trip through daily recapping in a dairy-style series called “The Great Alaskan Road Trip.” Check it out here or by clicking the button below!

Click Here to Read Our Alaska Recap Series

Planning our Great Alaskan Road Trip

Due to Alaska’s remoteness, size, unpredictable weather, and peak season prices (which are high in part due to Alaska’s short summer season), our 3-week trip took about 100 hours of planning, booking, and re-booking (due to vendor cancellations and limited availability in popular areas).

As a result of the risks to plans and the associated costs mentioned above, we decided for the first time to purchase travel insurance. (Road Trip Locals was actually featured in a Forbes article on the subject here.)

There’s plenty to share about planning our Great Alaskan Road Trip, but here’s one of the more fun (though not at the time) stories.

While mapping out our trip, we set numerous alarms on our phones to ensure we did not miss the incredibly competitive camping permit for Brooks Camp at Katmai National Park. We originally wanted to stay in Brooks Lodge to avoid having just a soft-sided tent and electric fence be the only things separating us from one of the most densely populated grizzly bear areas in the world—but you have to enter a lottery for Brooks Lodge 1.5 years in advance and we definitely missed that deadline.

We set multiple alarms because if we missed the lodge availability and the camping permit, then our option would be a day trip flightseeing tour to Katmai. This would be a great option… except that our excursion to Katmai was Jonathan’s #1 top activity for Alaska. He was most excited about seeing grizzly bears up close while fishing for salmon at Brooks Falls. A flightseeing tour would only give us a few hours at Brooks Falls, whereas camping in the park would give us much more.

So, to ensure we didn’t miss the window when camping permits became available, we even did “practice runs” to double-check our alarms worked and that we could quickly navigate to the proper page, refresh, and book.

Yet… you probably know where this is going… somehow… when the official day and time arrived… our alarms didn’t go off. The worst part is we didn’t notice until 30 minutes had passed. (Think about Katmai’s camping permits like Taylor Swift concert tickets. You can be there when permits go on sale and you still need a bit of luck to get one.) By the time we noticed our alarms didn’t ring, it was too late. Every two-person slot was gone, and after 75+ hours of planning and booking the perfect three-week road trip across Alaska, we missed out on the final piece of the puzzle that would lock everything in place.

… Insert heroic movie soundtrack here as Jonathan refused to give up…

Jonathan kept refreshing the permit page, probably half-heartedly and out of denial, but after an embarrassing amount of time, a two-person spot opened up during the timeframe of our trip! It wasn’t the exact date we wanted, and it was only for one night instead of two, but we booked it immediately. We were SO HAPPY to secure a night in Katmai National Park despite knowing we would have to move around the rest of our itinerary. (Note: We checked the permit page dozens of times since booking that one slot and can honestly say not one other two-person slot had opened up since. Almost like it was destiny!)

Costs of Our Great Alaskan Road Trip

Traveling to Alaska was a bucket list trip for us, so we spent a lot of time researching and planning our trip. While researching, we came across an all-in-one, all-eight-parks tour package that costs about $25,000 per person. Doing the trip ourselves, with a mix of camping and hotels and no shortage of excursions & activities, we were able to cut that in half.

It’s definitely possible to plan a cheaper trip, as we didn’t hold back on tours and activities, and we didn’t exclusively camp. That said, to see all 8 parks, it’s probably best to budget around ~$8K - $10K per person, minimum. Of course, if you’re visiting fewer national parks—for example, skipping the more remote parks and prioritizing the ones with commercial flights or public entrance roads— or you’re willing to camp for the majority of your trip, you can significantly reduce costs.

We found that most of our Alaska road trip costs were driven by a limited supply of lodging & peak tourism pricing, plus flight transportation to the national parks. Our rental car was also a large portion of our budget. And again, we went all in on tours and excursions to experience as much of Alaska as we could in three weeks!

2-Week Break (Unpack & Repack)

After our Great Alaskan Road Trip, we flew back to Dallas to recover from three weeks of non-stop adventures. We slept, caught up on work, unpacked and then repacked, and picked up Lincoln before starting the second part of our season.

Here’s the gear we brought with us to Alaska. We relied on merino wool’s odor resistance to combat multiple rewears & mapped out laundromats before we left so we could pack as light as possible.

2.5-Month Rocky Mountain Road Trip

For the second part of our 2023 travel season, we followed our more traditional road trip format, spending 2.5 months along the US and Canadian Rocky Mountains.

We met up with friends, spent an absolutely magical night in one of our bucket list hotels, conquered the Banff Via Ferrata (where we were rewarded with possibly the best mountain views of our entire trip), got to “redo” a visit to Glacier National Park to see it in all of its clear-day glory, found red Adirondack chairs in the middle of the Canadian wilderness, and even became tour guides for two weeks, showing our parents and best friends around Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks.

We hiked hundreds of miles, stayed in everything from $9/night campgrounds to 5-star hotels, and got to witness a solar eclipse while attending the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. We drove some of the most famous roads in North America, including Going to the Sun Road in Glacier and the Icefields Parkway in Canada. And, of course, we visited Yellowstone twice in the same season, so we could be there all four seasons of the same calendar year! (Yellowstone is one of our favorite places in the world, so getting to see it in all four seasons and compare / contrast is something we really enjoyed. See all of our posts about Yellowstone here.)

A glimpse into our Rocky Mountain Road Trip!

One Week in Denver, Colorado

Our trip began with a stop in Denver, CO. Denver is directly on the way when driving from Dallas, TX, to Grand Teton or Yellowstone National Parks, so it made a perfect first pitstop. We were able to meet up with some of our best friends, go hiking, and explore the city a little bit more. (We also spent a portion of our 2021 Travel Season in Denver. We love Colorado so much that we planned a pitstop in Western Colorado on our way home.)

3 Nights in Grand Teton & 1 Night in Yellowstone National Parks

From Denver, we made our way to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. We spent a few nights at Colter Bay Village in Grand Teton National Park so we could drive the Grand Teton Scenic Loop and hike Phelps Lake, Cascade Canyon, Hidden Falls, and Inspiration Point.

Then, we spent one night in Yellowstone at the Old Faithful Lodge, where we got to watch Old Faithful erupt after dark. (You’re more so listening to Old Faithful erupt but it was pretty dang cool anyway.) Years ago, during our 2015 PNW Road Trip, we spent five nights camping and hiking in Yellowstone but only spent a half-day hiking in Grand Teton, so it was awesome to explore more.

Three Weeks in Calgary

For our longest stay of the season, we traveled from Yellowstone to Calgary. There, we explored the city and took lots of day trips to Banff, Glacier, and the Kananaskis.

We conquered Mt Norquay Via Ferrata in Banff (again, not an understatement to say these were probably the best mountain views we had all season!!), hiked in the Kananaskis, saw the absolutely breathtakingly gorgeous Moraine Lake, visited a Wolf Dog Sanctuary, went to cideries, and even took an overnight trip to Glacier National Park of Canada.

10-Day Icefields Parkway Road Trip

This was a road trip within our road trip, meaning we took time off for this 10-day trip. There’s so much to see between Lake Louise and Jasper National Park, so we wanted as much time for hiking, sightseeing, and exploring as possible.

We drove the Bow Valley Parkway on our way to Lake Louise, then explored Banff, Lake Louise, and Yoho National Park. After three nights in Lake Louise (including 24 m-a-g-i-c-a-l hours at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise), we spent three days on the Icefields Parkway before reaching Jasper.

Similar to our Great Alaskan Road Trip, we wrote daily recaps of the incredible things we go to do and see for this portion of our travels! Click here to read our Icefields Parkway Travelogue, or click the button below.

Click Here to Read ‘Roadtripping The Rockies’ 10-Day Icefields Parkway Recap

Glacier National Park

Jasper was the turnaround point of both our 10-Day Icefields Parkway Roadtrip and our entire 2.5-Month Rocky Mountain Road Trip. So, once we made it to Jasper, we spent a few days exploring before retracing our steps back to Dallas. On our way there, we stopped in Grand Teton and Yellowstone, so on our way back, we stopped in Glacier.

We spent about a week outside of West Glacier in Kalispell, taking day trips into the park to drive the Going-to-the-Sun Road and hike Avalanche Lake and Hidden Lake.

Yellowstone & Grand Teton

Okay, so we stopped in Yellowstone and Grand Teton NPs on our way back also LOL so we could see the parks in the fall. We made our fourth and final trip to Yellowstone, completing all a visit to all four seasons in one calendar year. We also got to meet up with family and friends, bouncing around between Gardiner, MT, Island Park, ID, Driggs, ID, and Canyon Village inside Yellowstone NP.

Grand Junction, CO

After about three weeks in the Yellowstone and Grand Teton areas, we made two final stops on our way back to Dallas. The first was in Grand Junction, CO, to enjoy Colorado’s wine country for a week. We had originally planned to stop for a night in Moab, on a mission to create a jam-packed guide for driving Arches Scenic Drive in Arches National Park, but drove straight to Grand Junction because Jonathan had to fly back to Dallas for a couple of days instead. So, Lincoln and I enjoyed Grand Junction wineries before he met back up with us for the final stop of our trip.

Albuquerque, NM

For our last stop, we made it to Albuquerque, NM, for the Albuquerque International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta. It was absolutely incredible — AND the date we visited coincided with the Annular Solar Eclipse, which made it all the more special.

The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta

It was the perfect cap to our most ambitious season yet, and then, we were back in Dallas, excited to recap and share all the best stories and pictures from our 2023 Travel Season! Thank you for reading and following along with us!