The top 10 attractions in Alaska are Denali National Park, Kenai Fjords National Park, Glacier Bay National Park, Mendenhall Glacier, Katmai’s Brooks Falls, the Fairbanks northern lights, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Anchorage’s Alaska Native Heritage Center and Anchorage Museum, the Alaska SeaLife Center, and the Alaska Railroad. Most are summer destinations, but the aurora season runs from August 21 to April 21.
Alaska is too big to see in one trip, so the smartest way to use this list is to pick a home base (Anchorage, Juneau, Fairbanks or Seward) and build outward. Each entry below says what you will actually see, how you get there, and when it is worth going. Where something has changed recently, we say so.
Alaska’s Top 10 Attractions at a Glance
| # | Attraction | Region | Best for | Main window |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Denali National Park | Interior | Mountain views, wildlife | Summer bus season |
| 2 | Kenai Fjords National Park | Southcentral | Tidewater glaciers, boat tours | Summer |
| 3 | Glacier Bay National Park | Southeast | Glacier cruising, whales | Summer |
| 4 | Mendenhall Glacier | Southeast | Easy glacier access by road | Grounds open year-round |
| 5 | Brooks Falls, Katmai | Southwest | Bears catching salmon | July and September |
| 6 | Fairbanks aurora | Interior | Northern lights | August 21 to April 21 |
| 7 | Wrangell-St. Elias | Southcentral | Wilderness, mining history | Summer |
| 8 | Anchorage cultural sites | Southcentral | Alaska Native cultures, art | Check current hours |
| 9 | Alaska SeaLife Center | Seward | Marine animals, rainy days | Year-round |
| 10 | Alaska Railroad | Statewide | Scenic travel | Mid-May to mid-September (main routes) |
1. Denali National Park and Preserve
Denali National Park covers more than six million acres and centers on Denali, which the National Park Service lists at 20,310 feet, the tallest peak in North America. One road, the 92 mile Denali Park Road, reaches into the interior. Private vehicles can use only the first 15 miles, so most visitors ride a park bus to look for bears, moose, caribou, sheep and wolves. The mountain is often hidden by cloud and cannot be seen from the park entrance, so build in more than one day.
Current access (October 2026). The Pretty Rocks landslide closed the road near mile 45 in 2021, and buses have turned around at mile 43 ever since. The National Park Service announced on September 3, 2026 that the roughly 475 foot Pretty Rocks Bridge is finished, and it expects full bus service along the road, including Eielson Visitor Center, Wonder Lake and Kantishna, to resume in 2027. If you want the deep-park day, plan for summer 2027.
2. Kenai Fjords National Park
Kenai Fjords is where the Harding Icefield, about 700 square miles of ice, meets the sea. Per the National Park Service, at least 38 glaciers flow from the icefield. The town of Seward, roughly 125 to 130 miles south of Anchorage, is the gateway.
There are two ways in. By car, you can reach Exit Glacier, the only part of the park connected to the road system. From the Exit Glacier trailhead, the Harding Icefield Trail is a strenuous 4.1 mile one way climb with about 3,500 feet of elevation gain, ending at a view over the ice. By water, boat tours leave Seward’s small boat harbor, cross Resurrection Bay and reach tidewater glaciers such as Aialik and Holgate, with sea otters, puffins, Steller sea lions, orcas and humpback whales along the way.
The Exit Glacier Nature Center is staffed from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day, so summer is the practical window.
3. Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve
Glacier Bay holds about 3.3 million acres of mountains, fjords, temperate rainforest and tidewater glaciers, and it is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site shared with Wrangell-St. Elias and two Canadian parks. Roughly 200 years ago, ice filled almost the whole bay. It has since retreated to leave a fjord about 65 miles long with 11 tidewater glaciers still calving into it.
This is mainly a water-borne attraction. The National Park Service reports 691,387 cruise ship passengers in 2024 and says over 90 percent of visitors never set foot on land inside the park. If you want to go ashore, the park sits about 60 miles west of Juneau, and the Alaska Marine Highway runs scheduled ferries from Juneau to Gustavus, which connects by a roughly 10 mile road to the park’s Bartlett Cove base. Glacier Bay Lodge has just 48 rooms, so book early. Cruise vessels have limited summer use days, with June through August the main season.
4. Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau
Mendenhall is the easy one. The 13 mile glacier flows from the 1,500 square mile Juneau Icefield, which feeds 38 large glaciers, and it sits about 12 to 13 miles from downtown Juneau inside the Tongass National Forest. Alaska’s tourism sources describe it as the only glacier in Southeast Alaska reachable by road.
The Forest Service visitor center, dedicated in 1962 as the first of its kind in the nation, has a glacier observation area and a 15 minute film. Trails lead along Mendenhall Lake to Nugget Falls, which drops 377 feet in two tiers. Black bears fish Steep Creek during the salmon run, so keep your distance and watch for trail closures. Stay well back from the glacier face and lake ice, which can be thin.
Two practical notes: parking and the main trails do not require a fee, though the visitor center does, and the visitor center runs only intermittently in April and October.
5. Brooks Falls and Katmai National Park
Katmai is one of the most remote places on this list and one of the best for bears. At Brooks Camp, brown bears stand at the lip of Brooks Falls to catch leaping salmon. The National Park Service says viewing is best in July and September: in July most bears fish at the falls, and in September most are at the mouth of the Brooks River.
Expect crowds in July. The Falls Platform holds 40 people, rangers keep a waiting list when it is full, and waits commonly pass 90 minutes, especially midday. In peak season more than 25 bears can be in view at once. National Park Service and concessioner services at Brooks Camp run from June 1 to September 17, and the falls are a 1.2 mile walk from the visitor center.
Can’t travel? Live bear cams from the park are streamed through explore.org, and the Fat Bear Week vote that follows in late September and early October has become a fan event of its own.
6. The Northern Lights in Fairbanks
We are in aurora season right now. Explore Fairbanks, the local tourism board, puts the season at August 21 to April 21, and Fairbanks sits at about 65 degrees north, under the “auroral oval” where activity concentrates. Low precipitation, distance from the coast and limited light pollution help the odds.
Treat the headline statistic with care. The tourism board says a stay of at least three nights, with evenings spent outside, gives you a better than 90 percent chance of seeing the aurora, but it is a tourism-industry figure and no one can guarantee a show. Clear, dark skies matter more than cold.
Options include driving to a dark viewpoint (the Chena Lake Recreation Area is about 20 minutes away), booking a guided tour, or watching from a heated cabin. Pick up the free Aurora Viewing Map and Guide at the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors Center downtown.
7. Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Kennecott
At 13.2 million acres, Wrangell-St. Elias is the largest national park in the United States, covering roughly the same area as the next two largest parks combined (Denali and Gates of the Arctic). Only two dirt roads reach it. The 60 mile McCarthy Road runs from Chitina to the Kennicott River, where a footbridge leads half a mile to McCarthy and 4.5 miles to Kennecott.
Kennecott is the draw: a National Historic Landmark of copper mining buildings, including a mill the National Park Service bought and began restoring in 1998. From there, guided trips cover glacier hiking on Root Glacier, ice climbing and packrafting. If you would rather skip the gravel, flights from Chitina operate from mid-May to mid-September.
This is a trip for people who want space and quiet. It does not have the infrastructure of Denali, and that is the point.
8. Alaska Native Heritage Center and Anchorage Museum
If your trip is built around Anchorage, spend a day on culture. The Alaska Native Heritage Center, which opened in 1999, shares the heritage of Alaska’s 11 major cultural groups. Indoors, the Hall of Cultures displays clothing and tools from the state’s regions and examines difficult history, including forced assimilation through boarding schools. Outdoors, village sites show life-sized traditional dwellings. It is a living cultural center, with dance, storytelling and artists you can meet.
In the downtown core, the Anchorage Museum covers four floors of Alaskan art and culture, historic and contemporary, plus Alaska Native exhibits and science. Aviation fans can add the Alaska Aviation Museum at Lake Hood.
Hours and ticket prices change, so check each site before you go. If the weather turns on the day you planned a glacier cruise, this is your strongest fallback.
9. Alaska SeaLife Center, Seward
The Alaska SeaLife Center, at Mile 0 of the Seward Highway, is the state’s only public aquarium and also operates as a marine research, education and wildlife rescue facility. It is open year-round and offers daily guided encounters with animal care staff, including marine mammals, seabirds and octopuses.
It earns a place in the top 10 because it solves a real planning problem: Seward is the base for Kenai Fjords boat tours and Exit Glacier, and both depend on weather. The center gives you an indoor way to meet the animals you hoped to spot from a boat, and the rescue and rehabilitation work shows what happens behind the scenes.
Pair it with Kenai Fjords for a two day Seward stay. The Alaska Railroad’s Coastal Classic runs between Anchorage and Seward in summer, so you do not need a car for the trip.
10. The Alaska Railroad
The Alaska Railroad covers about 470 miles from Seward to Fairbanks, and the ride is an attraction in itself. In summer, three main routes run: the Coastal Classic (Anchorage, Girdwood and Seward), the Denali Star (Anchorage, Wasilla, Talkeetna, Denali and Fairbanks) and the Glacier Discovery (to Whittier and Spencer Glacier).
Timing matters. The 2026 Coastal Classic left Anchorage at 6:45 AM and returned from Seward at 6:00 PM, so a same-day trip is possible. The Denali Star takes roughly 8 hours from Anchorage to Denali and 4 more to Fairbanks. The summer schedules for 2026 ran from mid-May to mid-September and have now ended, though the railroad also operates a winter route called Aurora Winter. Fares listed for 2026 put Anchorage to Seward in Adventure Class at $133 for an adult and $67 for a child, and Anchorage to Denali at $205 for an adult. Confirm current prices before you plan.
How to Combine These Attractions
Alaska rewards short, themed loops over long drives. Three combinations work well:
- Southcentral base (Anchorage and Seward): Kenai Fjords, Alaska SeaLife Center and the Coastal Classic train, with Anchorage culture on a spare day.
- Interior loop (Anchorage, Denali, Fairbanks): the Denali Star train links all three, and Fairbanks adds the aurora when the season is on.
- Southeast base (Juneau): Mendenhall Glacier on land and Glacier Bay by ferry to Gustavus or cruise.
Katmai and Wrangell-St. Elias are better treated as stand-alone trips, because both involve remote access and extra planning.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you see Denali from the park entrance?
No. The mountain is not visible from the park entrance, the nearby campgrounds or the hotels outside the gate, according to the Anchorage Daily News visitor guide. On a clear day it can be seen from several spots along the park road, and from parts of Anchorage and Fairbanks.
When is the best time to visit Alaska’s top attractions?
It depends on the attraction. Park roads, boat tours and visitor centers mostly run in summer. Brooks Falls is best in July and September, and the Fairbanks aurora season runs from August 21 to April 21.
Can you drive to a glacier in Alaska?
Yes, in two places on this list. Exit Glacier near Seward is the only part of Kenai Fjords National Park reachable by road, and Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau is reachable by car from downtown.
Is the Denali Park Road fully open in 2026?
No. Buses went no farther than mile 43 through the 2026 season. The Pretty Rocks Bridge was completed in September 2026, and full bus service is expected in 2027.
How far is Seward from Anchorage?
About 125 to 130 miles by road, depending on the source, along the Seward Highway. The Coastal Classic train covers the route in roughly four and a half hours.