This colorful row of wooden buildings on pilings above Ketchikan Creek once formed the city's red-light district and now houses galleries, shops, and salmon-viewing platforms. Each summer, spawning salmon fight their way upstream directly beneath the boardwalk, drawing crowds to the creek's edge.
Southeast Alaska: The Inside Passage
5 Days
Southeast Alaska is a narrow, roadless world of fjords, glaciers, and rainforest islands, stitched together by the Alaska Marine Highway and threaded by the protected waters of the Inside Passage. This 5-day itinerary moves port to port in the traditional order ships and ferries have followed for over a century — north from Ketchikan through Wrangell and Petersburg, on to Sitka's Russian-era waterfront, into the state capital at Juneau beneath the Mendenhall Glacier, and finally to the gold rush boomtowns of Skagway and Haines at the Passage's northern end. Totem poles, onion-domed churches, tidewater glaciers, and salmon streams running through the middle of town trace a region shaped equally by Tlingit, Russian, and gold rush history.
Day 1 — Ketchikan
Southeast Alaska's southernmost city and self-proclaimed "Salmon Capital of the World" makes a fitting gateway to the Inside Passage. Built along a steep, forested hillside above Tongass Narrows, Ketchikan holds the largest collection of standing totem poles anywhere in the world, and the misty, glacier-carved fjord just beyond town ranks among the most dramatic scenery in Alaska.
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This U.S. Forest Service visitor center offers an excellent orientation to the region's rainforest ecology, Native cultures, and public lands, with a simulated rainforest walk and detailed exhibits that provide useful context before venturing further into Southeast Alaska.
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The Totem Heritage Center preserves rare, weathered original totem poles retrieved from abandoned Tlingit and Haida village sites, displayed exactly as they were found rather than restored. A short drive north, Totem Bight State Historical Park sets a collection of vividly painted, hand-carved replica totem poles and a reconstructed clan house within a rainforest setting on the waterfront.
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Accessible only by boat or floatplane, this 2.3-million-acre wilderness east of Ketchikan features sheer granite cliffs rising 3,000 feet straight from the sea, waterfalls tumbling directly into fjords, and a near-constant mist that gives the monument its name. A half-day flightseeing or boat tour here is widely considered one of the most spectacular excursions in all of Alaska.
Day 2 — Wrangell & Petersburg
Continue north aboard the Alaska Marine Highway, threading through the narrow, island-studded waters of Wrangell Narrows toward two of the Inside Passage's most authentic, least-touristed towns. Wrangell holds one of the oldest continuously inhabited sites in Alaska, while Petersburg's Norwegian fishing-village character and nearby tidewater glacier reward the extra effort of reaching it.
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Set on a small tidal island in Wrangell's harbor, this site features a reconstructed 1940s clan house and a ring of totem poles honoring the Shakes dynasty of Stikine Tlingit chiefs, who controlled trade along the Stikine River for generations.
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A short boardwalk leads to a rocky beach scattered with dozens of ancient petroglyphs carved into the stone, their age and original purpose still debated by archaeologists, making this one of the largest concentrations of rock art in Alaska.
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Called the fastest free-flowing navigable river in North America, the Stikine spills out of British Columbia's coastal mountains into a broad, braided delta near Wrangell, offering jet boat tours through wildlife-rich wetlands and past hot springs and glaciers.
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Crossing between Wrangell and Petersburg, ferries navigate the Wrangell Narrows, a famously tight, twenty-one-mile channel marked by dozens of buoys and lights that Alaska Marine Highway captains have long nicknamed "Christmas Tree Lane" for the density of navigational markers required to thread it safely.
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Founded by Norwegian fishermen in the late 1800s, Petersburg retains a distinctly Scandinavian character, best seen at the waterfront Sons of Norway Hall, home to a full-size Viking ship and a lively Norwegian heritage festival each May. Just outside town, boat tours reach LeConte Glacier, the southernmost tidewater glacier in North America, known for calving icebergs directly into the sea.
Day 3 — Sitka
On the outer coast of Baranof Island, facing the open Pacific rather than the sheltered Inside Passage, Sitka carries the deepest layered history in Southeast Alaska — capital of Russian America for decades before the 1867 transfer to the United States, and for centuries before that the seat of the Kiks.ádi Tlingit clan. Onion domes, totem-lined rainforest trails, and a raptor rehabilitation center make for one of the region's richest single days.
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This small hilltop overlooking Sitka's harbor was the site of the formal 1867 transfer ceremony in which Russia sold Alaska to the United States, and long before that served as a fortified residence for Tlingit and later Russian governors. Panoramic views over the town and surrounding islands make it an easy first stop.
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The onion-domed St Michael's Cathedral, rebuilt after a 1966 fire using original icons and artifacts saved by the townspeople, remains the spiritual heart of Sitka's Russian Orthodox heritage. Nearby, the Russian Bishop's House, one of the last surviving Russian colonial buildings in North America, preserves original 1840s furnishings and a working chapel.
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Alaska's oldest federally designated park preserves the site of an 1804 battle between Russian forces and the Kiks.ádi Tlingit clan, and its coastal rainforest trail is lined with totem poles gathered from across Southeast Alaska, walked beneath towering spruce and hemlock along the shoreline.
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The Sheet'ká Kwáan Naa Kahídi is a traditional clan house where Tlingit dance groups perform ceremonial songs and stories for visitors, offering a living counterpoint to the town's Russian-era sites. The Sitka Historical Museum, housed in the restored 1930s Harrigan Centennial Hall, rounds out the town's story with exhibits spanning Tlingit, Russian, and American periods.
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This nonprofit rehabilitation center treats injured bald eagles and other birds of prey, many bound for release back into the wild, and its forested boardwalks offer close, respectful views of eagles recovering in flight enclosures — a memorable close to a day steeped in Sitka's layered history.
Day 4 — Juneau
Alaska's capital is unreachable by road from anywhere else in the state, accessible only by boat or plane and hemmed in tightly between the Gilbert and Coast Mountains. Beyond its compact, walkable downtown, the surrounding wilderness delivers a face-to-face glacier, an island famous for its brown bears, and a jumping-off point for one of the crown jewels of the entire National Park System.
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Notably lacking the dome typical of most state capitols, this understated 1931 building — originally constructed as a joint territorial and federal office — reflects the practical, frontier character of Alaska's government and offers free guided tours through its legislative chambers.
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One of the most accessible glaciers in North America, the 13-mile Mendenhall Glacier flows directly to the edge of a lake just a short drive from downtown Juneau, its deep blue ice framed by waterfalls and, in good conditions, visible ice caves. A visitor center and network of easy trails make it simple to spend an unhurried few hours here.
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Known to the Tlingit as Kootznoowoo, "Fortress of the Bears," Admiralty Island holds one of the highest densities of brown bears on Earth, alongside bald eagles and old-growth rainforest. Day trips by floatplane or boat from Juneau bring visitors to viewing platforms at Pack Creek, where bears fish for salmon in full view of observers.
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A short flight or boat ride from Juneau, this UNESCO World Heritage Site protects a dramatic tidewater fjord system where glaciers have retreated more than 65 miles since the late 1700s, leaving behind a living laboratory of returning plant and animal life. Tour boats bring visitors close to actively calving glacier faces, along with regular sightings of humpback whales, sea otters, and mountain goats.
Day 5 — Skagway & Haines
Your journey concludes at the northern end of the Inside Passage, where the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897–98 sent tens of thousands of hopeful prospectors scrambling over the mountains toward the Yukon goldfields. Skagway's preserved boomtown streets and a scenic narrow-gauge railway retrace that frantic chapter of history, while a short ferry across the fjord to Haines reveals a quieter, more remote side of the northern Passage before your trip comes to a close.
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This park preserves the story of the 1897–98 Klondike Gold Rush, when Skagway briefly became the largest town in Alaska almost overnight. Restored buildings along the town's original streets, ranger-led walking tours, and exhibits on the grueling Chilkoot and White Pass trails bring the chaotic stampede era vividly back to life.
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Skagway's wooden-facade downtown remains remarkably intact from its gold rush heyday, lined with false-front saloons and outfitting shops turned gift stores. From the depot at its edge, the narrow-gauge White Pass and Yukon Route railway climbs a dramatic, cliff-hugging route built in 1898 to ferry prospectors and supplies over the mountains, still operating today as one of the most scenic train rides in North America.
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A short ferry crossing from Skagway, Haines offers a quieter, more residential alternative to its gold rush neighbor, framed by the Chilkat and Chilkoot mountain ranges. Best known for hosting one of the largest gatherings of bald eagles on Earth each fall along the nearby Chilkat River, the town closes out the Inside Passage journey on a wilder, more small-town note.