Skagway Excursions | How to Spend One Day in Skagway, Alaska
This travel guide provides the best Skagway excursions to make the most out of your one-day Alaskan cruise port stop.
Going on an Alaskan cruise is an extremely fun and unique vacation. From the beautiful outdoor scenery, wildlife sightings, and delicious seafood, you’ll have the best time of your life on an Alaskan cruise! As someone who has been on an Alaskan cruise and spent an entire summer exploring Alaska, I’m going to go over the best Skagway excursions you need to know about before your cruise.
In this blog post, you are going to learn about the unique Skagway cruise port excursions to help you make the most of your one day cruise port stop.
After learning about these Skagway excursions, you are going to be SO prepared to book the best excursion for everyone in your cruise party to enjoy!
This post is all about the best Skagway excursions everyone should know about.
Best Skagway Excursions
Below are the best Skagway excursions to help you make the most of your Alaskan cruise! If you see more than one thing you’re interested in trying out in Alaska, don’t worry, some of these excursions you can choose from in Ketchikan or Juneau, Alaska too! Don’t forget to check out my Complete Guide to Ketchikan and my Travel Guide to Juneau too!
15 Skagway Excursions You Need to Know About
1. Take a Train Ride through the Mountains
One of the most popular Skagway excursions in the iconic White Pass and Yukon Route Railway, where you get to explore the entirety of Alaska’s beautiful outdoor scenery and even spot some wildlife too! This particular excursion symbolized the history of Skagway due to the route tracing the original Klondike Trail of ’98, where thousands of individuals passed searching for fortune.
2. Go Dog Sledding
Dog Sledding is by FAR one of my favorite things to do in Skagway, Alaska. What better way to get the full Alaska experience than well-trained dogs leading you through the beautiful outdoor scenery? Even better, you can sometimes see wildlife during your tour too! There are SO many types of dogsledding options in Alaska, and some of them let you pet the Husky puppies too!
3. Pan for Gold
Skagway, Alaska is one of the most famous gold rush towns, and you can experience gold mining yourself as well. You’ll be with a tour guide and some other individuals from your cruise, where your tour guide will show you the ropes to panning for gold. Once you start to find some gold, you can actually trade it in for cash too! When I panned for gold, mine was worth $17! This is such a fun Skagway excursion, especially for families!
4. Take a Boat Ride through Skagway
Taking a boat ride through the Alaskan waters is probably one of the most popular Alaskan excursions, not only in Skagway either. Whether you’re in Juneau, Ketchikan, or Skagway, you can be sure to find a boat ride excursion. However, the excursions in each location do differ from each other too. Whether you’re interested in seeing something specific, such as a getting up close to a glacier, you’ll definitely want to do your research before booking your boat ride.
5. Visit the Yukon Suspension Bridge
Have you ever wanted to visit another country? Well, now you can! The Yukon Suspension Bridge is another popular tourist attraction in Skagway, Alaska. However, once you cross the bridge, you are now in the Canadian territory. The dramatic bridge sways 65 feet over the rapids below, but don’t worry, it’s a bridge made for everyone to enjoy! Once you cross the bridge, you can explore spectacular views from platform and winding boardwalks. Such a fun outdoor experience!
6. Canoe on Summit Lake
Canoeing is another extremely popular Skagway excursion. However, this is an excursion you can experience at other cruise port stops in Alaska too, depending on what you want to see. In Skagway, you can experience inlets, coves, salmon spawning streams, and numerous waterfalls. All up close and personal too!
7. Hangout with Puppies
Is there anything better than hanging out with cute little puppies? Please let me know, I’d actually like to know. Okay, okay, but you can actually hangout with puppies in Alaska as a Skagway excursion! You can pet, hold, cuddle and take photos with little baby puppies for however long you want (or however long the tour is)! This is actually a Skagway excursion that my family and I signed up for on our previous Alaskan cruise. So, if you’re looking for something relaxing, I highly recommend! 🙂
8. Explore Local Shops through Skagway Historic District
The Skagway Historic District is a popular and free thing to do in Skagway if you aren’t looking to have a booked Skagway excursion. Located directly off of the cruise port, you can explore local tourist shops, try new restaurants, and even purchase some unique Alaska jewelry. Whether you sign up for an excursion or not, I highly recommend browsing through the town to see everything Skagway has to offer!
9. Go Axe Throwing
Axe throwing is a super popular activity in Alaska, mostly because you can find the Alaskan Lumberjack Show in Ketchikan. However, if you’re not interested in the show, you can still get your axe throwing experience in Skagway too. This is such a fun activity if you’re looking for something more relaxed with the family!
10. Take a Helicopter Tour over Skagway
If you want to experience the best views of Skagway, then a helicopter tour is for you. During this unique experience, you can fly over glaciers, mountains, wildlife, and the entire Skagway city. One of the best Skagway excursions to capture beautiful photographs!
11. Hike through the Tongass Rainforest
The outdoor scenery in Alaska in unmatched. There are so many breathtakingly beautiful hikes in Alaska, and if you’re looking to hike, I recommend checking out the Tongass Rainforest in Skagway, Alaska. The Tongass National Forest is the largest in the nation and covers most of Southeast Alaska. However, Skagway provides you with a tour guide to hike the Tongass Rainforest, which is about a 2 hour hike. You’ll have plenty of time to explore more of Skagway afterwards too!
12. Sign-Up for an All-You-Can-Eat Salmon Bake
While you’re in Alaska, you might as well try some of the best salmon of your life! It is no secret Alaska is known for fresh salmon due to the spawning that happens every year. Although Ketchikan is known as the “Salmon Capital of the World,” you can still get some delicious salmon in Skagway, too. Even better, you can book a Skagway excursion where Alaska locals will cook you up some of their iconic salmon recipes.
13. Go on a Wildlife Viewing Tour
If one of your Alaskan goals is to see a whale, then you most definitely should go on a Wildlife Viewing Boat tour. Some of the boat tours are so confident you’ll see a whale, that if you don’t, you can get your money back! Aside from wildlife, the boat tours take you up close to glaciers and mountains, so you can still be sure to get a beautiful outdoor scenery out of it too.
14. Kayak through Chilkoot Lake
If you’re someone who doesn’t mind getting up close to aquatic creatures, then I highly recommend going kayaking in Skagway too! It was one of my favorite things to do in Alaska. While you’re kayaking, you can take in the gorgeous mountains, get up close and personal to glaciers, AND you can even see seals pop their head out of the water too! Honestly, it was so cute to see, it’ll make your day!
15. Take a Scenic Driving Tour of Skagway
OK – so you maybe you aren’t a fan of small boats or helicopters, and that’s okay. Skagway offers a bus tour too, where you can still experience the outdoor scenery and wildlife spotting. During this Skagway excursion, a tour guide will drive you around the small town where you can learn about the history of Skagway, while taking in the gorgeous views of Alaska!
This post showed you all about Skagway excursions.
And there you have it! The best Skagway excursions for your one day cruise port stop on an Alaskan cruise! What excursions or hidden gems would you add to this list? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear about it!
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