Author: The O’Phalens

  • Our Favorite Camping in Alaska Spots: Stunning Campground & Boondocking!

    Our Favorite Camping in Alaska Spots: Stunning Campground & Boondocking!

    We drove just about everywhere you can drive in Alaska and spent all summer RV camping in Alaska, both in paid campgrounds with full hookups and in roadside boondocking spots.

    The views everywhere were incredible, but these two spots had some of our favorite views, combined with other benefits like usable cell service (with AT&T) and solid overall camping experience.

    I mean…come on…look at this view from our yard:

    RV Camping Alaska | Fifth Wheel RV is parked at Upper Trail Lake in Moose Pass, Alaska | Blue skies and trees overlooking Upper Trail Lake

    It was honestly really challenging to pick just two camping in Alaska spots, but here they are:

    Favorite campground: Paradise RV Park in Palmer, Alaska

    Paradise RV Park in Palmer, Alaska is appropriately named! This park has unbelievable 360-degree mountain views in an idyllic farmland setting. The owners are super friendly, and the park is immaculately maintained. The price is right, too! Campgrounds in Alaska are definitely on the pricier side, but this campground was more affordable than some of the other Palmer, Alaska campgrounds and it was definitely the nicest.

    Check out this drone footage that Dan put together of Paradise RV Park on his Instagram.

    Favorite boondocking spot: Upper Trail Lake in Moose Pass, Alaska

    Upper Trail Lake is Alaska camping at its best (and most authentic!). It’s a big gravel lot with room for dozens of big rigs that’s right off the Seward highway, but not visible from the road (so the road noise is basically non-existent!). Every spot has mountain views and many are lakeside, which makes for AMAZING early morning kayaking. I even just sat in my kayak one morning floating and drinking my coffee. The other cool perk is that you can watch float planes from nearby Moose Pass taking off and landing. Our kids loved that the Alaska Railroad train to Seward was visible, too. Locals love this spot during the summer, which can be a fun way to meet some new Alaskan friends. Be aware that Alaskans like to take full advantage of the summer midnight sun, and this spot may be noisy until later in the evening.

    The photo of our RV at the top of this post was taken in this boondocking spot, and so was this picture of me kayaking Upper Trail Lake literally steps from our front door:

    Kayaking Upper Trail Lake in Moose Pass, Alaska | One of our favorite camping Alaska spots

    Disclaimer: Product links in this blog post may be Affiliate links, and I will earn a small commission for each purchase made through these links at no extra cost to you. Affiliate income helps fund our family travel and allows me to keep creating inspiring family travel content for you. I so appreciate when you use my links to make purchases you would have made anyway.

    To find more of our insider tips for RVing in Alaska, check out our RV Alaska for Families e-book.

    Cover page of RV Alaska with Kids travel guide, Alaska vacation ideas | O'Phalen Adventures

    RV Alaska with Kids Travel Guide

    $25.00

    If you’re looking for Alaska vacation ideas, you’ve come to the right place! This guide features 20+ pages of what we learned throughout a summer RVing Alaska with Kids.

    For more about Alaska, check out these posts:

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  • Alaska Packing List: Summer Adventure Must Haves

    Alaska Packing List: Summer Adventure Must Haves

    Alaska packing list summer image of three kids at the Anchorage museum

    Kid Clothing

    Summer in Alaska is probably colder and wetter than you expect. At least, it was for us! Here are a few Alaska summer packing list kid must-haves:

    • Fleece jackets (our kids LIVED in their Columbia fleeces)
    • Quality rain gear (we didn’t have rain pants, but they sure wouldn’t have hurt to have!)
    • Keens hiking boots (Alaska is one place where it’s worth splurging to make sure everyone, even the kids, has good hiking footwear)

    Adventure Gear

    • Inflatable kayak (I’ve been raving about mine because it’s affordable, packs up small, and has allowed me to see so much more in Alaska!)
    • Drone (if you want amazing footage of giant landscapes, this is the place to nab some drone footage, and this drone is AMAZING)
    • Kid hiking backpacks
    • Alaska field guides (for identifying all of the flora and fauna on your adventures!)
    • Fishing rod and tackle (when the salmon are running!)

    RV Supplies

    An Alaska RV trip is worth all the hassle, but your RV will take a beating in Alaska. Be prepared to “rescue” yourselves because you might have RV trouble miles from cell service or a sizeable town. For these reasons, I’ve included some emergency supplies we actually used on this Alaska summer packing list!

    Miscellaneous

    Here are a few other Alaska summer packing list essentials.

    I hope this Alaska packing list summer RV trip essentials guide was helpful to you! I know I spent a lot of time researching what we’d need, so I thought I’d pass that knowledge on. Don’t forget to check out our guide to RVing Alaska:

    Cover page of RV Alaska with Kids travel guide, Alaska vacation ideas | O'Phalen Adventures

    RV Alaska with Kids Travel Guide

    $25.00

    If you’re looking for Alaska vacation ideas, you’ve come to the right place! This guide features 20+ pages of what we learned throughout a summer RVing Alaska with Kids.


    Disclaimer: Links in this blog post are Amazon Affiliate links, and I will earn a small commission for each purchase made through these links at no extra cost to you. Affiliate income helps fund our family travel and allows me to keep creating inspiring family travel content for you. I so appreciate when you use my links to make purchases you would have made anyway.

    For more of what I’ve written about our adventure in Alaska, head here:

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  • New Website!

    New Website!

    After three years of being on the road, I’m excited to finally have a website to share all of the travel wisdom we’ve learned. I’m looking forward to having a place to write longer form work than Instagram allows and to creating travel guides with the (literally) hundreds of pages of notes that I’ve kept about where we’ve been and what’s been fun! Now instead of copy and pasting from my Notes app whenever someone asks me a question, I’ll be able to send them a link to this blog. Please feel free to ask questions and leave comments about what you’d like me to share more of here. Thanks for following along!

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