Planning a trip to Alaska in your own airplane…I’ve made the decision in the last couple weeks to take my son and fly to Alaska next summer (2012).  I’ve always had a desire to fly a plane to Alaska and see the state, but my recent inspiration for the trip has come about after reading this article in Americans Flyways.

http://www.americasflyways.com/oct05story.html

A little about me… – i.m a CFI, CFII, MEI, ATP – 2500 hours, I own a flight school and the Airplane I’ll be taking is a Diamond DA20C1 Evolution.  I want to fly my plane to Alaska and explore the state.  The blog posts over the next couple months will be all about planning this flight.

The general plan is to fly the Alaskan Highway to Northway, then on to Anchorage, Homer, and finally Fairbanks before returning to Colorado.

As the article suggested, I have started planning my itinerary and reserving lodging for the June-July timeframe.

Here’s my basic itinerary as of today:
June 21 – Fly from Eagle Colorado to Helena Montana – Check In Helena Marriott
June 22 – Helena to SOMEWHERE in Canada – Clear Customs
June 23 – Somewhere in Canada to Somewhere in Canada or Northway AK
June 24 – From Somewhere to Anchorage AK – Checkin Anchorage AK Marriott
June 25 – Still in Anchorage
June 26 – Depart Anchorage to Homer AK
June 27 – Stay in Homer AK
June 28 – Depart Homer AK – Fly to Fairbanks AK – Marriott in Fairbanks, AK
June 29 -Stay Fairbanks
June 30 – Depart Fairbanks to Somewhere in Canada
July 1 – Enroute AK to Mainland
July 2 – Enroute AK to Mainland
July 3 – Arrive back home

So, today I scheduled hotels in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Helena.  Simple reason – I have thousands of Marriott rewards points and I wanted to make sure I took advantage of as many Marriott hotels along the way as I could.

Anyhow, more to follow – basic dates are set at this point and 5 of the 10 nights of lodging are figured out.

If anyone wants to caravan along with us on this let me know.  We would love company, and having a couple different planes all traveling together could be a huge advantage.  Safety in numbers!

See Also

• Flying your plane to Alaska
  A great article about flying your plane to alaska