Customer Reviews

The Milepost 2008

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

The 2008 edition of "The Milepost" is the current version of the most uniquely valuable travel guide to Alaska and Northwest Canada (British Columbia, Yukon, and Alberta Provinces). This guide is a must-have resource for the tourist, RVer, and North Country camper.

Alaska and Northwest Canada cover a huge geographic area with significant terrain and weather variations and far less travel infrastructure than most travelors are used to in the Lower '48 states. Travelors should not expect gas stations, restaurants, and franchise hotels at every exit off the main roads, nor should they expect that facilities or even roads are open year-round. Dangerous weather and driving conditions are possible to likely as much as six months or more. In addition, travelors need to be alert to both the prospect of wildlife viewing along the roads and sometimes close encounters in the road.

"The Milepost" provides maps, diagrams, photographs, and most of all, an almost mile by mile travelogue of what to expect along the main roads in the North Country. This detailed information will allow the travelor to locate the next gas station, campground, hotel or scenic spot in areas where signs and billboards may be scarce. The text is seeded with advertisements for many of the commercial establishments along the Alaska Highway in Canada and the major road network inside Alaska, allowing travelors to plan ahead for scarce beds. Travelors can also plan for fishing charters on the world famous Kenai Peninsula or the operating hours of the few but often fascinating small museums and roadside attractions that can be found along the way.

The annual updating of "The Milepost" assures the travelor of some advance notice for construction or major changes in the road network. "The Milepost" does include some information on the location of trailheads, but serious walkers, bikers, and snowmachiners should seek elsewhere for detailed information on off-road routes. "The Milepost" includes convenient scheduling information for the Alaska Marine Highway System.

This publication is very highly recommended to both the resident and the travelor in Alaska and Northwest Canada, which are some of the most scenic parts of the North American continent. Don't leave the Lower '48 without it.

Wow. No wonder everyone recommended Milepost for our upcoming Alaska adventure. I ordered it, not knowing exactly what to expect, but am very happy with what we got!

If I were trying to describe this to someone else, I would say it's like a AAA Tour Book on steroids. The Milepost has maps, points of interest, hotel, restaurant and campsite information - but it also has detailed road information - by milepost marker - of the most popular routes in Alaska and the Yukon.

There is advertising. They allow businesses to write their own business description, and they don't indepedently rate hotels or restaurants, which isn't a big deal for us, but may be for others.

The only downside is the actual size and weight of the book. We're travelling by motorcycles - so space is at a premium. This is a very BIG book, but it's also big on information, so worthy of a spot in our saddlebags.

THE MILEPOST 2008, 60th Editon, updated by the editors: If you are planning a trip to the North Country: Alaska, Yukon, Northwest Territories, you simply cannot go without this amazing guide. The new edition, updated each year, is now available. It lists the food, gas, lodging, camping, fishing, road conditions, bridges, and ferries... all the way from major access routes in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada. In the remote, sparsely populated Northwest, Milepost is famous as the quintessential guide, the Bible of how to get there and how to handle any problems along the way.This edition contains Ferry information and a pull-out Plan-A-Trip map. Experienced travelers since 1949 have known You gotta have this one! It is as valuable as the early settler's compass!

If you are heading up through Canada to Alaska...this book is a must.....almost EVERY Alaskan has a copy as a means to plan their in-state trips. Once you get and use this book, you wish every other region in the world had the same format. A MUST HAVE BOOK.

Background - we have been planning a 2 month RV trip up the Alaska highway and around Alaska (Denali, Anchorage, etc) - we leave on May 15th but have been doing the planning for more than a year now. And I have been looking for all the info I can get - to help me prep for this wonderful event - hopefully the first of several trips to Alaska. We must have a dozen books that we have purchased read and used. And we first bought the 2007 to start our reading and then purchased the 2008 to have the most current informtion for our trip.

There is nothing like the Milepost. Every mile, every highway, every trash can / pullout / restaurant / gravel section / etc. As close as you can get to someone who has driven every mile of every road and is telling you what you will experience - steep grades, gas stations, etc. Now, you have to read a lot - mile by mile by mile by mile - to catch references and hints at what interests you. But in the process, you also are made aware of confusing intersections, areas where Grizzley bears frequent, long (50 mile) stretches without any fuel stops. etc.

I have 2 "weaknesses" about this book.
1. You will work to get the information out of this "telephone sized" book. There is no big index section that will tell you about all the RV camps - nor all the BC parks, nor ... anything. You have to read mile by mile by mile to find what you want. The information is there and there is no other book like it.

2. The only other omission in the Milepost is that it (by design) only covers attractions, events, that are on the highways. So if you want to do something that is not on a major highway, it may not be in the Milepost.

Still, bottom line, if you are driving any of the Alaska, Yukon, BC highways, you should get this book and carry it.

The Milepost 2008: Alaska Travel Planner (Milepost)
This is an excellent reference for travelling to Alaska, NWT & Yukon and includes BC & Alberta. It has lots of details of what to see & do; describes road conditions well; and I enjoy seeing the ads too--they give a sense of what is there and where to shop too!! I have used this book before when we went to Alaska and by the time I came home it was falling apart because of so much use. This year we are going to Invuvik, NWT to touch the Arctic Ocean. It has lots of useful info on the areas we are travelling through: British Colombia, Yukon, Northwest territories and Alberta.

This book is the best information I have found for helping to plan a trip to Alaska. Very up to date information.

This book is everything I expected and much, much more. A must have for anyone planning a trip to Alaska! This is truly the bible for traveling into this part of the world.

I highly recommend this book!

This book was very helpful when we needed to know where the next pull-out spot would be. But many of the businesses that the book stated were open year round were not open. Because of this we nearly ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere but luckily we had some full gas cans with us. I couldn't go by their mileage markings for the last 100 miles or so before we got to the US border because the book was going off of the inaccurate kilometer markers but the markers had been corrected.
We traveled in mid December and I am assuming that this book was geared towards summer travelers. But it was still worth the price.

We live in the lower 48 and have driven to Alaska four times over the past 19 years, but when we were getting ready to drive up again, we didn't hesitate at all, we purchased the "Bible" of travel to Alaska....The Milepost. We cannot even think of driving up there again without it in our truck. It is excellent. The material in this book is the best that there is. Period.