Accessible, Incredible Kenai

If there is an outdoor lover who doesn't dream of someday going to Alaska, I haven't met him. The state looms like the Promised Land in the minds of those who love wild places and nature unbounded.

The only hitch in moving those Alaska dreams into reality comes in reckoning how you're going to see more than a smidgen of this great big beautiful state in a typical one-week vacation. After all, you're dealing with a chunk of land so large that were it laid across the Lower 48 states, it would stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific. We're talking huge.

But what if I told you there's a corner of Alaska where you can experience up-close all of those things commonly associated with the Last Frontier—glaciers, soaring peaks, thunderous coastline, empty places, grizzlies, moose, whales, fish-filled rivers, icebergs, mammoth trees—and you won't need to hire a bush pilot or take a sabbatical from work to do it?

The Kenai Peninsula is that place, a miniaturized Alaska if you will, whose many natural treasures are reachable by car, bus, train, or boat. A mere 45 miles separate the Kenai from Anchorage. The peninsula starts with a bang—rugged, wild Chugach National Forest—and only gets better all the way out to its conclusion 90 miles later at Kachemak Bay State Park and the incomparable Kenai Fjords National Park.

In between, opportunities abound to grab a front-row seat to the high drama Mother Nature stages daily on the Kenai: mile-high mountains plunging to salt-water fjords, volcanoes smoldering, pods of killer whales breaching offshore.

After the show, sit down to a sumptuous dinner at a nice restaurant in town, or retreat to the comforts of a wilderness lodge or high-style tent camp. On the Kenai, wilderness and civilization mix unlike anywhere else.