Inside Passage Walking Tours: Exploring Major Ports of Call in Southeast Alaska [Paperback]

Julianne Chase (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2003

Inside Passage Walking Tours: Exploring Major Ports of Call in Southeast Alaska, by Julianne Chase, is ideal for Alaska cruise ship passengers or anyone else who wants insider advice on what to see and do on a limited schedule.

The best way to experience Southeast Alaska‚s premier destinations -- Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, and Sitka -- is on foot, and Inside Passage Walking Tours is the ideal personal tour guide. Inside Passage Walking Tours is an indispensable guide for cruise ship passengers who like to explore on their own, business travelers, state ferry riders, and individual boaters and sailors.

Author Julianne Chase works with one of the major cruise lines. She has walked each route numerous times and offers tips on side trips, alternative paths, and what to wear and carry. For the more adventurous walker, she describes two nearby wilderness hikes for each town, while boxed "quick facts" detail population, commerce, and weather statistics.

Each walk includes historic sites, Native American and other cultural information, the best lookouts and vistas, suggested dining spots (mentioned under "Grabbing a Bite" in each section), local personalities, events, shopping areas, maps, and photographs.

Another huge plus: Chase set up her book so that the walks are all circular routes. A person can start anywhere on the route, make their way along the entire tour, and finish right back where they started.

Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Sasquatch Books (June 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570611327
• ISBN-13: 978-1570611322
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 4.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,049,692 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great for cruise ship passengers, August 30, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Inside Passage Walking Tours: Exploring Major Ports of Call in Southeast Alaska (Paperback)

Sure, Alaskan Cruise Ships offer guided shore excursions which usually entail a bus tour. But Juneau, Ketchikan, Skagway and Sitka are all so much better on foot!

If you decide to check out these ports of call at your own pace, be sure to get this great little book. I loved it because it fit right in my pocket. The maps were easy to follow, simple to understand, and the advice was right on the mark. It's ideal --especially if you're on a limited time schedule. The author even suggests a few terrific dining spots in each town. She also notes them again with a knife and fork icon right in the text description of the tour, so you can't miss them as you go along.

You'll be sure to enrich your Alaskan cruise if you bring this book!

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly helpful!, October 16, 2002

By 

Joy Begbie (Somerville, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Inside Passage Walking Tours: Exploring Major Ports of Call in Southeast Alaska (Paperback)

We took this book with us to each port that we went to and were able to find a number of little off-the-beaten-path treasures as a result. The book gives detailed directions that even the directionally-impaired (like myself) can follow, and offers street names, landmarks, and amounts of walking time in order to assist you in getting from place to place.

In our case, our scheduled shore excursion in Juneau was canceled, so we just set out with the book. We got to see parts of Juneau that nobody else on our tour saw, and really enjoyed getting to know the city better. Some of the port towns in Alaska are very touristy, and this allowed us to plot out our own routes that would take us away from the crowds to see some of the lesser-known but just as fun landmarks. In both Juneau and Ketchikan, we found this book invaluable. I highly recommend it for anyone planning a cruise to Alaska - and especially for those who are doing it on a budget. By touring Juneau on our own instead of through a ship-planned shore excursion, we saved nearly five hundred dollars. Great book.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lightweight and complete, August 30, 2000

By 

beverly theunis (Edmonds, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Inside Passage Walking Tours: Exploring Major Ports of Call in Southeast Alaska (Paperback)

This book is so handy for the way it fit nicely into my, well, hand while I was walking around. I was able to refer to it so easily, letting it guide or remind me what I wanted to see and do. But I also read it before I went on my trip and loved the historical and hands on information like trail permits that helped me plan ahead. And I liked the fact that the author grew up in Juneau and she writes like a local with insider's knowledge and so you get more personal tidbits of info, easy to read, like a friend at your elbow.