Traveling Home

Taking place at the Arizona Biltmore for the final time, the conference keynote was delivered by Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist, The Economic Outlook Group, LLC, who provided a somewhat sobering look at the economy.

“The last couple of years I have been quite optimistic in my forecast, but I’m afraid this year I have to present a slightly different picture, one of a bit more caution,” he said, while stressing that it’s not by any means a “gloom and doom scenario.”

Baumohl elaborated on his outlook. “We do see some clouds converging over the course of the next two years and that does suggest that we’re going to have a material slowdown in economic activity, beginning in the second half of 2019 and extending into 2020,” he stated

Baumohl did emphasize that these forward-looking projections are not a reflection of current conditions. “Let’s be clear, certainly the economy is doing exceptionally well now,” he said.

To that point, Baumohl further noted that his company is forecasting GDP growth of 3 percent for this year for the U.S., which is the strongest it’s been in a decade and he pointed out consumer confidence remains strong. “The economy is going to keep on humming for rest of this year and could do well for first quarter of 2019,” he said.

However, Baumohl later added, “does this [economic] expansion still have legs? Yes, but those legs are tiring.”

As an example, the company is forecasting 2.2 percent GDP growth for the U.S. in 2019 and 1.4 percent in 2020. Baumohl cited the leading factors that could impact the U.S. economy going forward are the upcoming mid-term elections; an expected rise in interest rates; U.S. tariffs as a result of the global trade war; and geopolitical risks.

“There’s a lots of headwinds that we’re going to be facing. We’re 10 years into this expansion and it does get bit more treacherous at this point,” he concluded.

Meanwhile, Ali Hoyt, senior director, consulting & analytics, STR, noted that the company’s forecast for the national U.S. lodging industry is for “more of the same.” She noted that modest RevPAR growth is expected to continue for the rest of this year and into 2019.

Hoyt noted that limited new supply, at least nationally, will lead to some positive results in 2019. “RevPAR growth next year of 2.6 percent will continue to be driven by mostly rate growth with occupancy maintaining those peak levels,” she said.

Hoyt added, “On the rate side, 2017 represented what we would call fairly modest rate growth and on par with the long-term historical average of rate growth in the U.S. hotel industry…In 2018 we are seeing monthly rate growth is outpacing 2017 levels by one-half of one percent.”

Hoyt further touted the fundamentals. “Demand across the U.S. is still growing in about 80 percent of U.S. markets. The top 25 markets account for a lot of that new demand growth, with demand increasing 3.5 percent in those top 25 markets.”

According to STR’s latest forecast, supply will be up 2.0 percent in 2018 and 1.9 percent in 2019. Meanwhile, RevPAR growth is expected to be 3.2 percent and 2.6 percent, respectively, during the same period. Occupancy is expected to gain 0.6 percent and 0.2 percent, while ADR is forecast to grow 2.6 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively.

JP Ford, SVP and director of global business development, Lodging Econometrics, addressed the concern of growing supply in the market.

Ford noted that the number of projects in the U.S. hotel pipeline is up 7 percent year-over-year while the number of rooms is up 6 percent over 2017. “I would characterize this as solid, steady, disciplined growth,” he said.

Nevertheless, the supply numbers do begin to pick up slightly moving forward. Ford noted that last year saw a 2.3 percent increase in new supply, while the increase should come in at 2.4 percent for 2018 and 2019 before jumping to 2.6 percent in 2020.

Assessing the transactions market, Ford pointed out that the number of transactions has been declining since the beginning of 2016. He further added based on year-to-date totals through 2018 “it’s highly unlikely that the total number of transactions will reach 2017 totals.”

He explained the lack of deals.
“Because so many owners are holding on to their assets, reinvesting where appropriate and choosing to sell at another point in the future. Good idea? We’ll see, but many owners seem focused on capturing the remaining upside left in this real estate cycle,” said Ford.

Next month, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will head to on an official visit to Australia, Fiji, the Kingdom of Tonga, and New Zealand – and no doubt people from around the world will have their eyes on every moment of Harry and Meghan’s royal tour.

The visit, which runs from 16 to 31 October, will focus on youth leadership, environmental and conservation efforts, and the couple will be in the country for the 2018 Invictus Games in Sydney, a sporting event created by the Duke for the recovery and rehabilitation of servicemen and women.

Now, Kensington Palace has released an official schedule of where Harry and Meghan will be each day of their tour.

16 October – Sydney, Australia

The royal couple will touch down in the capital of New South Wales, famous for its attractions like the iconic Sydney Opera House and the ever-popular Bondi Beach.

17 October – Dubbo, Australia

Harry and Meghan will travel to the lesser-known community of Dubbo, a rural city that draws in visitors to the Taronga Western Plains Zoo.

18 October – Melbourne, Australia

Australia’s capital of cool will see the royal couple swing by – hopefully getting a chance to explore Melbourne in all its art- and sport-loving glory.

19, 20 and 21 October – Sydney, Australia

Harry and Megan will be in town for the launch of the Invictus Games on 20 October. The games will run until 27 October.

22 October – Fraser Island, Australia

The Duke and Duchess will visit the largest sand island in the world at 120 by 15 kilometres as part of the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy initiative to preserve forests.

23 and 24 October – Suva, Fiji

As the largest city in the South Pacific, Suva is set to see the royals touch down to explore Fiji.

25 October – Nadi, Fiji and Nuku’alofa, Tonga

This busy day will take Harry and Meghan to Nadi, home to the largest airport in Fiji, and Nuku’alofa, Tonga, the capital and home to the royal family of the island archipelago.

26 and 27 October – Nuku’alofa, Tonga and Sydney, Australia

After exploring another kingdom, the royals will make their way back to Sydney.

28 October – Wellington, New Zealand

New Zealand’s beautiful capital will be the first stop on the North Island. There Harry and Meghan can admire the beautiful harbour, scenic setting and amazing cultural scene.

29 October – Wellington and Abel Tasman, New Zealand

Getting out of the city, Harry and Meghan will head to Abel Tasman, a national park that’s home to the Coast Track, the country’s most popular Great Walk.

30 October – Auckland, New Zealand

Harry and Meghan will then travel north to Auckland, where they will find a bustling city surrounding by natural wonders like rainforest, volcanic cones and a massive marine reserve.

31 October – Rotorua, New Zealand

The final stop on the royal’s tour is Rotorua, known for its geothermal activities and geysers, where perhaps they can relax in a hot spring before the long journey home.

Megan Eaves, Destination Editor for North Asia, has recently returned from a trip to Kyrgyzstan.

Tell us more… I spent a quick five days exploring the Tien Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan on a horse trek. Kyrgyzstan is an extremely mountainous country, and has just completed an initiative to mark and map a network of trekking trails. And as I am a bit of a horse nut, and Kyrgyzstan is one of the most horse-crazy countries on the planet, it seemed right to do my exploring from the back of a hardy steed.

In a nutshell… This was a completely off-the-grid adventure involving a five-and-a-half-hour four-wheel-drive ride into the mountains along the Chinese border, mostly on unpaved old Soviet roads and dirt tracks, with the odd horse/sheep/goat traffic jam. I stayed at a yurt camp and took horse treks during the day, visiting the otherworldly Köl-Suu lake, watching September snowfall while staying warm over a fire and drinking Kyrgyz tea sweetened with wild-blackcurrant jam.

Defining moment? Standing under the starriest sky I have ever seen, shivering under two coats and sipping Kyrgyz cognac from the bottle to keep warm. With the nearest light pollution at least five hours away in any direction (if not much, much more), the Milky Way goes from horizon to horizon here. I am pretty knowledgeable about the night sky, but there were so many stars that I completely lost all sense of where familiar constellations and ‘bright stars’ even were. It was just a giant, glimmering mass, so bright you could find your way to the outhouse without a head torch by starlight alone.

Good grub? Kyrgyz nomad food is hearty and designed to help you withstand frigid, long winters and very high altitudes. There’s a lot of bread, jam, black tea, soups and noodles. I was suffering from a little bit of altitude sickness and the tea, jam and bread was the perfect comfort food.

You’d be a muppet to miss… Köl-Suu. It is the sort of lake that only exists in your dreams, or in some bygone adventurer’s travelogue. After a two-hour horse ride to get there, it started snowing, which only made the shards of grey peaks rising up out of milky turquoise water that much more otherworldly.

Fridge magnet or better? My nomad hostess gifted me with a giant jar of her homemade jam, made from blackcurrants she harvested in the mountains. It was a risky game putting it into my luggage but luckily it arrived home in tact (and my clothes unscathed from jam residue).

Fave activity? Just being on horseback out in the wild, so far from anywhere. It is a magical experience that is tough to describe. You become very aware of things like the sound of the wind and the feeling of letting your horse take his own sure-footed strides over sometimes rocky and sometimes marshy landscapes and through frigid rivers. We also took a boat ride out into the middle of Köl-Suu, but the motor was broken so we had to row. That definitely made it more memorable.

Watch the interview

Megan travelled to Kyrgyzstan with support from USAID Business Growth Initiative Project and #DiscoverKyrgyzstan. Lonely Planet contributors do not accept freebies in exchange for positive coverage.

Want more behind-the-scenes adventures? Find out what Destination Editor Trisha Ping got up to on her recent journey on the Trans-Mongolian Railway.

Mountain lions sure are in the news a lot, right? There was the deadly attack outside Seattle last May, the woman who was killed on Mount Hood, in Oregon, in October, then the Colorado jogger who killed a cougar with his bare hands in February, and now a mom on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, who saved her son from a hungry cat. Are these incidents connected or part of a larger trend? 

Attacks Are Not Common—In Fact, They're Incredibly Rare

“What we’re seeing is a statistical anomaly,” says Lynn Cullens, executive director of the Mountain Lion Foundation, a conservation group. She says that attacks by the cat are so rare that we simply don’t have good data on them. 

In the past 100 years, there have been fewer than two dozen fatal cougar attacks in North America. Before the current swarm of events, there hadn’t been a fatal attack on this continent since 2008. Suddenly, in the last year, there have been two, which, according to Cullens, may feel like a trend but “just isn’t.”

Populations Are Recovering

There may be more mountain lions in the woods today than there were just a few decades ago. When Europeans began settling the continent, they saw cougars as both competition for game and a threat to their own lives. Unregulated market hunting and bounties for dead cats eventually extirpated mountain lions, which had once roamed the entire lower 48, from most of the East Coast outside of Florida. By the mid-1900s, mountain lions lived in only a few isolated pockets of territory in the Rocky Mountains and westward. Conservation efforts created protections for the species, which has slowly been returning to more of its historic range. 

Cullens notes that efforts to count mountain lion populations remain rudimentary and are frustrated by the shy nature of the cats. The Mountain Lion Foundation estimates that there may currently be only 30,000 cougars in the U.S. 

It should be noted that populations of mountain lions don’t grow denser as their numbers expand. Mountain lions are territorial, claiming areas that run from 10 to 370 square miles in size (depending on the ecosystem in question). So expanding mountain lion numbers don’t mean there are more cats in the woods; it means there are lions in places there weren’t before. 

Humans Like Cougar Habitat

Even as mountain lions are reoccupying more and more of their historic range, humans are moving into it. Since 1990, 60 percent of new homes built in western states have been built in something called the wildland-urban interface (read: areas with natural beauty). If you live somewhere with deer, then you live in current or potential cougar habitat. 

In addition to all those new homes, humans are also going outdoors in record numbers. In 1979, 198 million people visited national parks. In 2018, that number was 318 million. And if you’re camping somewhere with deer—the cats’ preferred diet—you’re camping somewhere that’s current or potential cougar habitat. 

Killing Cougars May Increase Cougar Attacks

Cullens says that all of the recent headlines have been created by juvenile cougars. “The only time that you’ll see an increase in cougar population density is if young cats are dispersed there,” she says. 

That’s currently a problem in Oregon, where one of last year’s fatal attacks occurred. “I’ve not seen such high densities anywhere in the world,” Rob Wielgus, a cougar researcher, told Oregon Public Radio. That state is currently pursuing an aggressive strategy to reduce its mountain lion population, but it could be backfiring. 

Hunters target mountain lions for trophies, so they tend to pursue large, mature males. But large, mature male mountain lions are accomplished hunters who have developed a healthy aversion to humans. By removing those lions from the population, Oregon is allowing inexperienced juveniles to replace them. Those juveniles are not yet good hunters so may turn to people and their pets for an easy meal, and they may not have an ingrained aversion to places we live and recreate. 

“The best way to prevent mountain lion attacks is to stop killing mountain lions,” Cullens says. 

Lions Make Headlines

You’ve heard about all the recent mountain lion conflicts because you’ve read about them on websites like this one or seen them on social media. The stories I wrote about the runner in Colorado who choked a baby mountain lion to death are the most popular I’ve written so far this year. The success of those articles makes it more likely that I will write more stories about mountain lion attacks. I’m hopefully contributing to a greater public understanding of the threatened species, but I’m also increasing awareness of these events—and perhaps furthering the public’s fear of them. 

In addition to the 24-hour news cycle and the echo chambers of social media, advances in technology are also increasing awareness of the species. Motion sensors and night-vision and digital cameras have made it easier to capture images and video of the reclusive cats. GPS collars have created more information about their ranges and population numbers. And all that material now has wide-reaching distribution channels like this one that are eager for mountain lion content. 

If it feels like there’s more mountain lion attacks now than ever before, it’s a combination of all the factors discussed in this article. There is no data whatsoever suggesting that attacks are increasing or that any quantifiable threat is created by the presence of the species in our world. 

“If you’ve been outdoors in a place where cougars live, then you’ve been close to a cougar,” says Cullens. “They saw you, but you didn’t see them.” You survived that encounter, and you’ll likely be unaware of the next. 

Discover has launched a new credit card. This one is a business card, similar to the Discover it Miles card. Let’s check the details of the Discover it Business Card and whether it’s worth applying.

Discover it Business Card

The main draw of this new card it’s the earning rate, and specifically during the first year.

• Earn 1.5% cash back on every dollar spent on all purchases. Your rewards never expire.
• We’ll automatically match ALL the cash back you’ve earned at the end of your first year.

That means that you will earn a total of 3% cash back on all purchases for one year.

Application Page

Other Benefits

• No annual fee
• Free Employee Cards
• 0% Intro APR† for 12 months on purchases.

Analysis

The card has a good earning rate during the first year, with 3% on all purchases. But there’s not much beyond that. Nowadays we have Amex business cards that earn 2X Membership Rewards, which might be even better for some people. Then there’s no signup bonus either.

On top of that, Discover business cards report to personal credit reports which is yet another negative for this credit card.

Conclusion

A decent new card for the first year, but I doubt many people will rush to get it. There’s mot much going on besides that 3% cash back for 12 months.

Anyone planning to apply?

HT: Doctor of Credit

This post may contain referral, affiliate or sponsor links that provide Miles to Memories compensation. Thank you for your support.

Source: https://milestomemories.boardingarea.com/discover-it-business-card/

Sited near the Serra de Tramuntana mountain ranges, La Granja is a relic of Mallorcan history. The palatial country house is now an open-air museum presented as it would have been used by a 17th-century noble family and their extensive staff. 

The museum of La Granja is a stunning throwback to the island’s rural past. It’s located within the sprawling estate, which also features private gardens, an on-site restaurant, a terrace café, and a working wine cellar. The museum preserves generational snapshots of both noble and working-class life some 500 years ago, from a luxurious drawing room to workers’ quarters where grains, textiles, and perfumes were processed. There is even a torture chamber that exhibits a breadth of nightmarish instruments.

Outside, the mansion is enveloped by its spectacular landscape. A natural waterfall known to the ancient Romans gushes at a height of 30 feet, and stately botanical gardens sprout manicured flora. A yew tree said to be 1,000 years old is a highlight of the property, which is also inhabited by farm animals.

The original estate was built on an agricultural farmstead known as a “possessió” in the 13th century, during the reign of King James II. Upon conquering the Balearic island, the king divided Mallorca into four feudal municipalities, one of which was bestowed upon Count Nuño Sanç of Rossellon and Sardinia, who took up residence at La Granja. The count passed the land along to an order of Cistercian monks in 1239, who founded Mallorca’s first Cistercian monastery on the site, which operated for some two centuries. 

The site has been inhabited by aristocratic families since 1447, though the manor house you see today is primarily dated to the 1600s. In addition to the museum, La Granja is lauded for its artisan workshops, which provide visitors with firsthand tutorials on blacksmithing, candle making, carpentry, weaving, pottery, and more. An on-site restaurant serves Mallorcan food, and a sampling shop offers a range of preserves, fig bread, and wines for visitors to take home.

Overview

The Glacier Bay National Park is a US National Park near Juneau, Alaska. With about 547,000 visitors per year (as of 2017), it is the second most visited national park in Alaska, slightly behind Denali.

The vast majority of visitors to the park visit by cruise ships which sail up the Inside Passage of the Alaskan Panhandle to or from Anchorage. A much smaller number of visitors visit the park on foot or via smaller ships.

The park named for the many glaciers in the park. There are 1,045 glaciers which can be found in the park, seven of which terminate into Glacier Bay and can be seen by visitors.

It is also part of the Kluane / Wrangell-St Elias / Glacier Bay / Tatshenshini-Alsek UNESCO World Heritage Site which covers 4 parks in the US and Canada.

NOTE: Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska is different from Glacier National Park in Montana, and Glacier National Park in British Columbia.

The earliest human artifacts found near the park date back almost 10,000 years, however, due to the extreme glaciation, it is doubtful that there was significant long-term habitation within the current park boundaries. The current native people who live in the area around the park are the Tlingit tribe, although other tribes such as the Haida may have also lived here in the past.

Russian fur traders may have arrived in the area in the mid-18th Century, but there are no records of their visit. The first documented visit was by Jean-François de Galaup who in 1786 visited the area on foot to trade with the Tlingit.

In 1794 the Vancouver Expedition, led by Captain George Vancouver of the British Royal Navy, documented the area and recorded the extent of the ice flow for the first time. This is why more is known of the history of the glaciers of Glacier Bay than for most other glaciers in North America.

The late 19th-Century brought naturalist John Muir to the park, where the glaciers helped him understand the glacial valleys in Yosemite National Park.

The coastal location made it one of the easier sites in Alaska for people to visit and on February 25, 1925, Glacier Bay was established as a National Monument by President Calvin Coolidge. The monument was subsequently expanded by Franklin Roosevelt on April 18, 1939, to create, what was then, the largest site in the National Park Service System.

On December 1, 1978, Jimmy Carter expanded the national monument to include lands around the Alsek River, and then on December 2, 1980, Congress passed legislation to rename the site Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.

The main attraction of Glacier Bay is obviously the glaciers. While there are over 1,000 glaciers in the park, it is the tidewater glaciers which get most of the attention. (a tidewater glacier is a glacier which begins on land and terminates in the water.) There are currently seven tidewater glaciers in Glacier Bay. They are:

1. Gilman Glacier
2. Grand Pacific Glacier
3. Johns Hopkins Glacier
4. Lamplugh Glacier
5. LaPerouse Glacier
6. Margerie Glacier
7. McBride Glacier

The highlight of any glacier viewing experience is getting to see glacial calving. This is when large pieces of the glacier break off and crash into the water creating icebergs. Of the seven tidewater glaciers, there are four which regularly calve icebergs, the most famous and popular of which is Margerie Glacier.

If you travel to Glacier Bay by cruise ship, expect to spent at least one hour or more parked in front of a glacier, waiting to see iceberg calving. This is one of a few places in the world where you can see this phenomenon and one of the best. When the glaciers break off, you will hear oohh’s and aahh’s from everyone on board the ship as if they were watching fireworks.

In addition to glaciers and iceberg calving, you will probably see wildlife along the shore of the bay. Sea lions will almost certainly be seen sleeping on rocks in the bay. Brown bears can also be seen on the shore and depending on the time of year you go, you might get to see mothers and cubs. If you are lucky, you might also see wolves.

Seabirds will definitely be part of the experience. Puffins are the most popular seabird and you can expect to hear people on the deck of the ship shout if they see puffins. In addition, expect to see alcids, guillemots, murres, and terns.

Unless you are one of the few people who explore the park on foot, you will most probably be on the deck of a ship and will require the use of binoculars or a zoom lens for your camera.

As noted above, the most popular activity in Glacier Bay is glacier watching from the deck of a ship. This is how 90% of the visitors to the park will experience it.

However, just because most people visit by ship doesn’t mean that it is the only thing that there is to do.

Kayaking
Kayaking is a popular activity for the non-cruise ship visitors who visit the park. There are several options for what you can do including day trips, as well as 5-10 day excursions. You can find kayak outfitters in the nearby town of Gustavus.

Hiking
Given the nature of the park (mostly water and ice), hiking trails are limited. However, there are some trails in the area around the visitor center in Bartlett Cove. There are several trails which you can explore, all of which are single day hikes:

• Bartlett River Trail. 4-miles (6.4 km)
• Bartlett Lake Trail. 8-miles. (12.9 km)
• Beach Trail. 1 mile (1.6 km)
• Forest Loop Trail. 1 mile (1.6 km) .

Rangers lead guided walks on the Forest Loop Trail every day at 1:30 pm when the park is open.

Whale Watching
While it is possible that you will see a whale on any trip into Glacier Bay, they do offer trips specifically for whale and wildlife viewing. The Glacier Bay Lodge offers morning and afternoon whale watching tours which leave from the city dock in Gustavus.

Flightseeing
Aerial views of national parks give you a perspective that would be impossible to get from the ground (and is also impossible to get now that drones have been banned from all national parks in the US). 1 to 2-hour flightseeing tours over the park are available from several nearby communities. In fact, to do a flightseeing tour you might have to go to a nearby town such as Juneau, Haines, or Skagway. There are several charter companies which offer flightseeing:

Small Ship Glacier Viewing
Giant cruise ships are not the only option, or even the best option, for viewing glaciers. Every morning during the season, weather permitting, there is a day-trip boat which leaves from the dock at Bartlett Cove. In addition to seeing glaciers, they also drop off and pick up backcountry hikers and kayakers. Contact the Visitor Center for information and reservations.

Smaller charters are available out of the town of Gustavus for smaller groups and families.

The shore of Glacier Bay in the clouds
There are several things which are unique to photographing in Glacier Bay that you should be aware of before you.

Shooting From a Moving Vessel
Ideally, you’d like to be stationary when you are photographing something. When you are on a ship, however, that is out of the question. The thing to remember is that taking a photograph on a moving object is not that dissimilar from taking a photo of a moving object.

As Einstein showed, all motion is relative. To capture something when moving, make sure to use a fast shutter speed to minimize the blur of motion. If the ship is moving up and down as well as forward, try to time pressing the shutter button to when the ship is at the top or bottom of its vertical motion.

If you see wildlife on the shore, you will need a powerful zoom lens to photograph it properly. The movement of the ship will exaggerate the motion of the lens.

Shooting a Calving Glacier
You should be able to clearly hear when an iceberg calves off of a glacier. There will be a massive groaning and crashing sound of the ice breaking off and falling into the water.

The problem is, light travels faster than sound, and ships can’t get that close to the glacier for safety reasons. That means by the time you hear the groan of the ice breaking off, it has already happened. There will be a one or two-second delay between when the calving occurs and when you hear it. By the time you turn to photograph it, it might already be in the water.

You have to keep your eyes open and have your camera at the ready to properly capture falling ice. It isn’t easy to do. The moment you see activity, you have to get your camera up and start shooting.

Also, make sure your camera is in burst mode. Because this might be a once in a lifetime opportunity, make sure you check your camera settings before you get on the ship. Check your battery and make sure you have plenty of space available on your memory card.
Sea lions in Glacier Bay

Given the remote location of the park and the lack of road access to the park, dining options are very limited.

The town of Gustavus has several restaurants which are open during the season when the park is open. There are also markets and delis in town where you can buy your own food if you want. Gustavus is approximately 10-15 minutes away from the visitor center, outside the boundaries of the park.

Inside the park, there is only one dining option, and that is the Glacier Bay Lodge Restaurant. The restaurant is not cheap, but the views are the best you will find in almost any national park.

The park is technically open year-round, however, services are extremely limited or non-existent in the winter.

The visitor center is open from late May to early September. Daily hours for the visitor center are 10:30 AM to 8:00 PM in season.

Hotels

There is only one hotel within the park and that is the Glacier Bay Lodge. The lodge has amazing views, and is in the heart of activity for the park.

There are a few Hotels in Gustavus as well as accommodations on Airbnb. As the majority of visitors to the park arrive and stay on cruise ships, you do not see as many hotels as you would outside of other national parks. Most of the hotels are mid-tier places and there are no chain hotels in town.

Camping

There is only one proper official campground in Glacier Bay, and that is near the Visitor Center in Bartlett Cove. Reservations must be made in advance. The Bartlett Cove campsite is a walk-in campsite which has no facilities for RV’s or other vehicles. Showers are available at the Glacier Bay Lodge.

Backcountry camping permits are available from the visitors center as well.

As of the time of writing, there are no RV parks in Gustavus. The closest would be either in Haines or Juneau.

By Ship

The vast majority of visitors to Glacier Bay National Park arrive via cruise ship. There are several companies which offer cruises which visit the park. Some of the popular cruise lines with Glacier Bay stops include Norwegian, Princess, Carnival, Holland America, MSC, Celeberity, Silversea, and Cunard.

If you’d like the cruise experience but don’t want to be on a massive ship, I’d recommend Uncruise.

By Car

Gustavus and the Glacier Bay Visitor Center in Bartlett Cover are not connected to the rest of the world via road. To drive to the park you have to take the ferry from Juneau to Gustavus. Please check the Alaska Department of Transportation website for the ferry schedule. As noted above, there are no RV facilities in the park or in Gustavus.

Airports

The town of Gustavus has a small airport. Alaska Air has regular, daily flights from Juneau from early June through late August. The flight from Juneau to Gustavus is only about 30 minutes. If you fly via Alaska you can be routed directly to Gustavus from wherever you point of origin is.

Alaska Seaplanes flys six timers per day in the summer and three times per day in the winter. Alaska Seaplanes offers more options, as well as year round flights, but you will have to collect your bags as the airport and physically go to the Juneau Seaplane Terminal.

If you arrive by cruise ship, then all of your costs will be included in the price of your cruise.

If you are not on a cruise ship, expect to pay more than you might otherwise pay to visit a national park. The lack of road access means that transportation will cost more than usual. Likewise, food and other items are usually more expensive because they have to be shipped in. Budget more than you otherwise would for visiting a national park in the continental United States.

As the park is only open from late May to early September, the range of temperatures you will find is pretty limited. Expect high temperatures during the day in the 50s to 60s F (10 to 20 C). Temperatures seldom get very hot or very cold due to its location in the North Pacific.

You should definitely prepare for rain, as the odds of rain in the summer along the Alaskan coast is quite high. This will probably mean a rain jacket, not just an umbrella if you plan on being out on the deck of a ship.

Related and Similar Parks

• Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska
• Wrangell-St. Ellias National Park, Alaska
• Kluane National Park, Yukon
• Gwaii Haanas National Park, British Columbia

【公式URL】タイガーエア台湾 tiger WOWセール

　今回開催される「tiger WOWセール」では、タイガーエア台湾の日本発着の国際線18路線が対象で、片道4,200円からの価格で販売が行われます。（燃油サーチャージ不要、諸税別途必要)

　搭乗対象期間は9月11日から10月27日まで、販売期間は9月11日11時から9月12日23時59分まで。

タイガーエア台湾 tiger WOW夏休みラストチャンス セール

【搭乗対象期間】
2018年9月11日から10月27日まで

【対象路線】
・国際線(台北)
東京(成田)－台北(桃園) 5,600円～
東京(羽田)－台北(桃園) 5,600円～
名古屋(中部)－台北(桃園) 5,300円～
大阪(関西)－台北(桃園) 5,600円～
函館－台北(桃園) 5,900円～
いわて花巻－台北(桃園) 8,900円～
仙台－台北(桃園) 5,900円～
小松－台北(桃園) 11,600円～
茨城－台北(桃園) 9,200円～
岡山－台北(桃園) 5,300円～
福岡－台北(桃園) 5,300円～
佐賀－台北(桃園) 7,600円～
那覇－台北(桃園) 4,200円～
・国際線(高雄)
東京(成田)－高雄 5,600円～
名古屋(中部)－高雄 5,300円～
大阪(関西)－高雄 5,600円～
福岡－高雄 5,300円～
那覇－高雄 4,200円～

　
※表示の優待価格は空港税別の片道価格であり、チケット購入時には空港税が含まれた金額となります。
※優待価格での販売期間と座席数には限りがありますので、完売次第終了いたします。
※割引は、新規予約のみに適用されます。予約変更する場合は、適用できません。
※幼児料金のチケットは優待価格の対象外です。
※予約は返金、他人への譲渡はできません。