The Best Town in Alaska for Wildlife Viewing

Valdez, Alaska in an RV is the best way to experience this small ocean side town. Valdez is nestled among fjords on Prince William Sound. You probably know it as the primary location affected by the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill in the 80s.

It was the perfect spot for us to hide out for a week between Tim’s crazy Dalton adventure and the arrival of Tim’s parents the following week in to Anchorage.

Getting to Valdez, Alaska

It was SO NICE to finally be next to the ocean. After being in an RV for months driving through the center of North America we finally reached the coast. This finally felt like the RV experience we had been looking for. We had all the comforts of “home” as well as adventure and beautiful views right outside our door.

Valdez is a very very small town with only a few restaurants, a Best Western hotel, and LOADS of RV parks.

Somehow we managed to call the same day and get a spot right on the water at the Bear Paw RV Resort.

We had to move spots due to availability after a few days in to town, but there’s not a bad RV spot around. Every where you look you are surrounded by mountains, waterfalls and bald eagles.

It was really nice here catching up on work. The fact that Valdez Alaska is one of the wettest places in north america meant we spent a lot of time inside. We didn’t do much vlogging… hence the abnormal amount of voiceover in this episode, but we want to show what Valdez has to offer as it was one of our favorite places in the state.

Valdez Day Trips

It’s popular to take a day cruise out to the near by the Columbia Glacier. We opted out mostly because we were using this week to work and it was a little long to leave Pepper at home. We did love all of the other things to do in town.

Our favorite was the Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery.

Every year this hatchery releases approximately 230 million pink salmon and 2 million coho salmon. The fish later return to the hatchery by entering the facility using a fish ladder which carry the fish from Prince William Sound “up stream”. This process is known as ocean ranching and occurs every year!

The amount of fish here was just astounding. This of course made the entire area a popular destination for other wild life.

Just up the road at other river inlets is a popular place to spot our favorite animal right off the side of the road. BEAR

There’s only one road in and out of Valdez so you’ll definitely won’t miss Bridal veil falls and the X glacier on your way in and out, unless of course you’ll be riding the ferry on the Alaska Marine highway which can take you down to south east Alaska or up closer to Anchorage.

It was time to head to Anchorage where we met up with a couple who had found us through our New Zealand videos. Fortunately for us they happen to be the owners of Double Shovel Brewing in Anchorage and were wonderful hosts for the evening.

So at this time, Double Shovel isn’t on Harvest Hosts yet, but there is one harvest host in Anchorage. We would definitely recommend checking them out because, surprisingly enough, downtown Anchorage had THE WORST RV options we’ve seen the entire trip.

Another big thanks to Galen and Morgan who made our visit to Anchorage very memorable, or not… if you know what I mean.

Stay tuned for Sunday where we head to Seward with Tim’s parents and kayak to the Aialik Glacier with one of the funniest people we met on the trip…