Alaska Railroad Day Train (Fairbanks to Anchorage)

For year 2 of my annual Alaska birthday trip, I decided to do the iconic Alaska Railroad full-day train from Fairbanks to Anchorage. This is a 12 hour scenic train that is perfect for a group of girlfriends to spend the day drinking coffee, catching incredible views, and yapping. Below is our itinerary for a very quick winter girls weekend in Alaska.

The whole group in front of the train before disaster hit.

Saturday:

Our whole group flew into Fairbanks on a Saturday afternoon in early March. We had a group of 8 so we rented a mini van and went to get settled in at our rental cabin before heading out for dinner. I have said this before about Anchorage, but in my 2-3 trips to Fairbanks over the years, I haven’t found a booming food scene. We went to a diner-style burger restaurant and then drove out to the famous Chena Hot Springs, about an hour outside of Fairbanks. This had been on my list for a while and I finally was in Fairbanks in the winter! We had so much fun. The hot springs are not expensive and are quite large, so even when its busy there is plenty of room. The main draw is that they are open past dark in the winter so you allegedly can see the northern lights when they’re out, however, we were not so lucky (this is a common theme in all of my Alaska trip reports).

The flight into Fairbanks on a clear day is unbeatable!!

Sunday:

The train begins early, as it is a 12-hour event (spoiler alert: ours took much longer). Luckily, they serve all 3 meals onboard! One thing about this train, you will NOT go hungry. We had a fabulous breakfast in the dining car of the train. The staff was really great all day long: they were so kind and communicative about meal and stop logistics.

A huge breakfast to fuel up for a big day of chilling on the train.

There are a few stops along the way throughout the day to stretch your legs and take pictures, but the best views were on the train ride itself. We spent the day reading, chatting, having a drink or two in the café car, and painting pictures. I don’t know that this is an activity that is allowed, but we got desperate. Why, you ask?

Our train hit a moose. On a bridge. And then sat for FIVE HOURS waiting for the moose to be removed and another hour waiting for our conductor to be replaced as their allowable hours timed out. It turned into an insanely long day (18 hours onboard), but the staff made it fun, as did the group of girls I was with (I have amazing friends). We played poker, took naps, read, and giggled together. It was not the day we expected but it was truly a great memory. Someone told the staff at dinner that it was my birthday and the whole car ended up singing to me. it was truly a special memory!!

Anyways, we didn’t get in to the train depot until 1am. Thankfully, there were several taxis waiting there to get all the passengers where we needed to go! For us, it was the airport. We decided to forego our hotel room and early flight the next day to just pull an all-nighter and get back to Seattle first thing in the morning so we could all get back to our own beds ASAP.

Disastrous moose-death aside, this scenic train tour was a great way to spend a winter day, seeing lots of the Alaskan landscape and enjoying company with friends.

Honorable mention if you want more time in Fairbanks:

You can make an easy day trip to Denali National Park if you go in the summer. Other notable stops: the Alaskan pipeline, some central parks in town, an aircraft museum, and Denali, of course.

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If you are interested in travel advising or a custom trip itinerary, contact me at lauren.jones3@fora.travel or the submission box at the bottom of this page!