Alaska is now Australia's third favourite long-haul cruise destination, with around 36,000 Australians sailing the 49th state in 2025, according to CLIA figures. Only the Mediterranean and Asia draw more. But the trend to watch isn't on the water — it's inland. Princess Cruises says one in five of its Australian and New Zealand Alaska guests now adds a land tour before or after their cruise, and on Gulf of Alaska itineraries that figure climbs to nearly half.
The logic is simple. Alaska's coastal ports serve up glaciers and fjords, but the interior offers national parks, wildlife, rivers and — in late season — the northern lights. Princess has been sailing Alaskan waters for 57 years and operates five wilderness lodges, including Fairbanks Princess Riverside Lodge on the Chena River and the 656-room Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge, sitting about 1.6km from the entrance to Denali National Park. One lodge even has a phone button you can press to be woken if the aurora shows up overnight.
Late summer is a smart time to go. Autumn paints the tundra in red and ochre, the lights are active, and wildlife is busy: bears gorge on blueberries ahead of hibernation and moose enter the rut. Denali itself covers six million acres — bigger than New Hampshire — and sightings of grizzlies, caribou, Dall sheep and wolves are common on the Tundra Wilderness bus tour, though never guaranteed.
Fairbanks rewards a couple of days too. The three-hour riverboat Discovery III cruise on the Chena, run by the Binkley family for five generations, blends salmon lunches with sled dog demonstrations and Athabascan indigenous culture — including a look at a hand-sewn fur parka worth US$48,000. Local tip: Alaskans take their salmon seriously, ranking king salmon first and dismissing chum as mere "dog salmon".
Denali lodge manager Michael Cook's advice for long-haul Australians is blunt: stay two nights, not one. "It's a long way to come," he says. Movie fans can also hunt down the story of Into the Wild's Christopher McCandless — the infamous Magic Bus now lives safely in the University of Alaska Museum of the North, after too many pilgrims got lost trying to find it.
Value is the other hook. Princess sells roughly 30 cruise tour combinations, typically a seven-night Gulf of Alaska sailing plus three to eight nights inland, linked by its own rail service. A 10-day Denali Explorer departing next May starts around $3,101 per person, or $3,700 with drinks and Wi-Fi included — pricing that's hard to match through a dedicated adventure or expedition operator. There's currently a sale adding up to $500 per person in air credit and $300 per stateroom in shore excursion credit.
For Australians already crossing the Pacific, tacking a lodge stay onto an Alaska cruise turns a good holiday into a proper wilderness trip — glaciers on one end, grizzlies and the aurora on the other.
