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Alaska is our country's largest state and, arguably, one of the most difficult to thoroughly explore - but that doesn't mean anyone should be crossing it off their bucket list. Quite the contrary: It's an extraordinary place.
"The naturalist John Muir wrote that you should never go to Alaska as a young man because you'll never be satisfied with any other place as long as you live," points out Frank Barrett in the New Zealand Herald.
Barrett points out several reasons why an Alaska cruise is an opportune way to explore the state - noting that a jagged coastline makes traveling onboard a ship ideal.
Alaska's "isolation is compounded by the heavily broken fjord coast of the American North West," Barrett notes. "Juneau, Alaska's state capital, is 750 miles from Vancouver as the ship sails but more than twice that distance by road and car ferry."
Also, Alaska doesn't fall into the same category as cruises to the Caribbean or even the Mediterranean, Barrett says.
"While sun-seeking cruises to the Caribbean or the Mediterranean can be seen as relatively low-brow jollies, anyone setting off for Alaska has the look of a keen naturalist," he writes.
Of course, cruise ships also have a unique vantage point to give patrons an up-close glimpse of Alaska's wild frontier.
Holland America "says its elegant mid-size cruise ships were designed not to tower over the scenery, but to bring you closer to Alaska's natural wonders: 'from calving glaciers to breaching humpback whales,'" writes Barrett.
Need more convincing? Find more reasons to sail to Alaska here.
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