Alaska Inside Passage Explorer & Glacier Bay

Pressed between the Pacific and the Coast Mountains, Vancouver is the natural gateway to Alaska's Inside Passage — a city where temperate rainforest meets glass towers and where Dungeness crab and wild sockeye salmon define a Pacific Rim cuisine that rivals any in North America. Walk the 22-kilometre Stanley Park seawall, lose yourself in the Granville Island market, then ferry across to Victoria's Edwardian splendour. Alaska cruise season peaks from May through September, making Vancouver an ideal starting point for one of the world's great ocean journeys.

Ketchikan clings to the forested shore of Revillagigedo Island in Alaska's southeastern panhandle — a town so narrow that locals joke it is three miles long and three blocks wide. Revered by the Tlingit people for millennia as a place of abundant salmon, it is today celebrated as the Totem Pole Capital of the World: the collections at Saxman Native Village and Totem Bight State Historical Park preserve the most significant concentration of these monumental artworks anywhere. Creek Street, a boardwalk of colorful historic houses built over Ketchikan Creek, should not be missed. Summer (May–September) brings the best weather, with salmon running in the creeks below.

Klawock is one of Alaska's oldest Tlingit settlements on Prince of Wales Island, where twenty-one totem poles in a community park narrate clan histories predating European contact by centuries. Visit May through September via Regent Seven Seas or Silversea for genuine Tlingit cultural encounters, Alaska's longest cave system, and the intimate experience of a remote island community where wilderness is neighbor, not commodity.

Sitka, set on the wild west coast of Baranof Island in Southeast Alaska, is one of the Pacific Northwest's most historically resonant ports — a place where Russian Orthodox onion domes rise above totem poles and the great temperate rainforest presses down to the water's edge. The Sitka National Historical Park preserves the site of the 1804 battle between Tlingit warriors and Russian colonisers alongside a magnificent collection of monumental poles. Whale-watching, sea kayaking among sea otters, and brown bear spotting in the surrounding wilderness define the outdoor experience. May through September offers the most accessible and luminous conditions.

Glacier Bay National Park is one of the most profound landscapes of active glaciation on Earth — 3.3 million acres of southeastern Alaska where tidewater glaciers calve cathedral-sized icebergs into fjords of luminous blue water, and where the land itself is still rising, liberated from the weight of ice that buried this entire region just two centuries ago. The park, reachable only by ship or small aircraft, rewards visitors with wildlife encounters — humpback whales, brown bears, sea otters, and mountain goats — set against scenery of almost overwhelming grandeur. The season runs May through September; late June and July offer the longest days and most reliable wildlife activity.

The Inian Islands are a wild, uninhabited cluster at the entrance to Alaska's Cross Sound, renowned for extraordinary wildlife encounters including humpback whale bubble-net feeding and massive Steller sea lion colonies. Must-dos include Zodiac excursions along the islands' rocky shores, watching cooperative whale feeding, and exploring tide pools teeming with marine life. Visit July–August for peak whale activity and the best sea conditions.

Icy Strait Point is a stunning Alaskan port known for its breathtaking natural beauty and rich Native Tlingit culture. Must-do experiences include savoring fresh local seafood and embarking on wildlife excursions in Glacier Bay National Park. The best season to visit is during the summer months, when the weather is mild and wildlife is abundant.

Haines is an authentic Alaskan town on North America's deepest fjord, home to the world's largest bald eagle congregation — up to four thousand birds along the Chilkat River — and a thriving arts community preserving Tlingit cultural traditions. Visit June through August via Cunard or Lindblad for glacier helicopter landings and coastal hikes, or October through February for the extraordinary eagle spectacle that makes Haines Alaska's best-kept secret.

America's only state capital unreachable by road, Juneau rewards the journey with a wilderness grandeur that few cities on earth can match. The Mendenhall Glacier — a living river of ancient ice — lies just fifteen minutes from downtown, where floatplanes dart above a waterfront flanked by spruce-draped mountains plunging straight into the sea. The must-do experience is a helicopter landing atop the icefield or a whale-watching excursion in Stephens Passage, where humpbacks breach in astonishing proximity. Juneau is warmest from June to August, though even summer days can bring the famous Southeast Alaska rain that keeps the rainforest perpetually luminous.