Some travel days are relaxing. Some are carefully paced. And then there are the days when you look at the schedule and decide that 15.5 hours of trains, scenery, exploring, and a boat ride somehow sounds perfectly reasonable.
This was one of those days.
The plan was simple enough: board the Alaska Railroad in Anchorage, ride south to Seward, squeeze an entire boat excursion into the middle of the day, then climb back aboard the train and return to Anchorage that night.
The boat ride deserves its own story—and trust me, it will get one—so this one is about the journey there and back.
And in Alaska, sometimes getting there is half the adventure.
Good Morning, Alaska
My alarm went off painfully early on May 14, 2022.
I needed to be at the train station around 5:30 a.m., which meant dragging myself out of bed, gathering my camera gear, and heading outside while most reasonable people were still sleeping.
Normally, walking through a city toward a train station at that hour would mean wandering through darkness beneath streetlights.
Not in Alaska.
I stepped outside expecting the usual predawn darkness only to discover that the sun had already beaten me to it.
Apparently, even the sun gets an early start during an Alaskan spring.
That was one of my first real reminders of just how far north I was. The daylight schedule simply didn’t operate according to the rules I was accustomed to. It was barely morning according to my watch, yet outside it already felt like Alaska was telling me:
You’re awake. I’m awake. Let’s go do something.
Fair enough.
I made the early morning walk through Anchorage toward the station, excited, slightly tired, and very aware that I had a ridiculously long—but hopefully incredible—day ahead of me.
Going Gold Star
For the trip, I had decided to upgrade to GoldStar Service.
Was it necessary?
No.
Was I already in Alaska and willing to spend a little extra money to make an incredible train ride even better?
Absolutely.
And once I climbed aboard, I knew I had made the right decision.
The GoldStar cars feature enormous curved glass windows that stretch overhead, turning the train into something resembling a rolling observation deck. Instead of simply looking out at Alaska, you could look up and around at it.
Mountains didn’t disappear when they rose above the normal window line.
They just kept going.
I settled into my seat as the train prepared to leave Anchorage and quickly realized this wasn’t going to be one of those trips where I put on headphones and stare at my phone.
There was simply too much outside.
GoldStar also included breakfast on the journey south, dinner on the return trip, and drink tickets for the onboard bar.
So basically, someone had taken one of the most scenic train rides in America and added food and alcohol.
I approved of this arrangement.
Breakfast With a Moving View
Not long after leaving Anchorage, it was time for breakfast.
There is something wonderfully civilized about sitting down for breakfast aboard a train while Alaska rolls past the windows.
One moment you’re eating.
The next you’re staring outside because another mountain, body of water, or ridiculously scenic stretch of wilderness has appeared.
Then you remember you’re supposed to be eating.
Then you look outside again.
This process repeats for most of the meal.
As we traveled south, Anchorage gradually disappeared behind us and the scenery became increasingly dramatic. Civilization faded and Alaska began taking over the windows.
Mountains.
Water.
Forests.
Snow.
More mountains.
Every few minutes seemed to bring another scene worthy of stopping for a photograph—except I was already moving through it.
Luckily, I had brought my cameras.
Obviously.
The Ride Along Turnagain Arm
One of the highlights of the route is the stretch along Turnagain Arm, where the railroad runs between the water and the mountains.
This was exactly the type of Alaska scenery I had imagined before the trip.
Except imagining it and actually sitting inside a glass-domed train watching it unfold around you are two completely different things.
The mountains seemed enormous.
Snow still covered the higher elevations, while the water stretched alongside the tracks below. Every curve revealed another view, and the curved windows above made everything feel even bigger.
There were moments when I wasn’t sure which direction I should be looking.
Left?
Right?
Straight ahead?
Up?
The answer was basically yes.
And because this was me traveling, there was the constant internal battle between experiencing the moment and photographing absolutely everything.
Sometimes the camera won.
Sometimes I forced myself to put it down.
Welcome to Seward
Eventually, the train rolled into Seward.
Normally, arriving somewhere after such a beautiful train ride would be the beginning of a leisurely afternoon.
Maybe grab some lunch.
Walk around town.
Take some photographs.
Find a drink.
Relax.
Not me.
I had another adventure scheduled.
Because apparently riding the Alaska Railroad across some of the most beautiful scenery in the country wasn’t enough for one day, I had squeezed a boat excursion into the middle of the itinerary.
That boat trip would take me into the waters around Kenai Fjords National Park, where there would be glaciers, wildlife, mountains, and even more reminders that Alaska operates on an entirely different scale.
But that’s another post.
For now, just imagine me stepping off one form of transportation and immediately heading toward another.
Adventure efficiency.
Or questionable vacation scheduling.
Probably both.
And Now We Do It All Again
After several hours on the water, it was time to return to the railroad station and begin the journey back to Anchorage.
The great thing about scenic train travel is that traveling the same route twice doesn’t necessarily mean seeing the same thing twice.
The light had changed.
The clouds had moved.
The mountains looked different.
Views I might have missed while looking out one side of the train that morning suddenly caught my attention on the return.
And after spending hours bouncing around on a boat, sitting inside the GoldStar car felt pretty damn comfortable.
This time, instead of breakfast, dinner was included.
So there I was again, sitting aboard a moving train, eating a meal while Alaska casually showed off outside the windows.
There are worse ways to end a day.
Much worse.
And, of course, I still had those drink tickets.
It would have been irresponsible to waste them.
The Long Ride Home
By this point, the day was beginning to catch up with me.
I had started before 5:30 in the morning.
I had ridden a train from Anchorage to Seward.
I had spent hours aboard a boat.
I had taken more photographs than any reasonable person probably needed.
And now I was riding the train all the way back to Anchorage.
Yet outside the windows, Alaska kept giving me reasons to stay awake.
The evening light stretched across the landscape as we made our way north. The scenery that had welcomed me that morning now provided the backdrop for the final hours of an incredibly long day.
And because this was Alaska in May, darkness wasn’t exactly rushing to arrive.
The sun had beaten me out of bed that morning, and it wasn’t particularly interested in going to bed before me either.
15.5 Hours Later…
Eventually, we rolled back into Anchorage.
From the time I had arrived at the station that morning until returning that evening, the entire adventure had consumed roughly 15.5 hours.
It was a long day.
A very long day.
But it was also exactly the kind of travel day I love.
I had crossed a chunk of Alaska by rail, eaten breakfast and dinner aboard a moving train, watched mountains and water slide past curved glass windows, spent several hours exploring by boat, probably taken an irresponsible number of photographs, and returned to Anchorage thoroughly exhausted.
That’s a pretty successful day.
Looking back, upgrading to GoldStar Service was absolutely worth it for me. The meals and drink tickets were nice, but the real luxury was the view. Those massive curved windows turned transportation into part of the destination.
The Alaska Railroad wasn’t simply a way to get from Anchorage to Seward.
It was part of the adventure.
And somewhere between that ridiculously early walk through Anchorage and the late return that evening, I learned another important lesson about traveling in Alaska:
You can pack an incredible amount of adventure into one day.
Especially when the sun apparently refuses to go to sleep.
Next up: the boat ride I somehow squeezed between two train rides—glaciers, wildlife, Kenai Fjords, and several more hours of proving that apparently I don’t understand the concept of a relaxing vacation.
