Juneau Travel Forum

hello
we are a party of 6 coming on a cruise to juneau on jujy 31. we arrive at 8 am and rented a minivan which we have to return by 6 pm.
i would appreciate hearing about the posible tours we can do in addition to driving to mandenhal glacier. is there a nice scenic road close by, wild life watching like bears etc?
thanks for helping
giora

Juneau doesn't have a lot of roads so you can't go far. With 6 people it is still a smart choice for getting around.
Cruise ships pull in at the south end of downtown.
The drive north of town gets you out into the wilderness pretty quickly. The Shrine of St. Therese is a favorite stop of mine. Past there are some great beaches and hikes.
Back in town, there is the governor's mansion (house anyway), the capital building. Lunch at the fiddlehead restaurant is always good.

I would park and walk when you get within a few blocks of the cruise ship dock as it gets pretty crowded, especially if there are mulitple ships in.

From the Mendenhall Glacier, take "Back Loop Road" which winds you around the back side of Auke Lake and drops you into the Auke Bay area. From there, you can either head back to town (left) or continue on "out the road" (right). The Shrine of St. Therese is a favorite stop, as is Eagle Beach and the Pt. Bridget State Park at the end of the road. Once you've reached the end, turn around and head back toward town.

The Fiddlehead Restaurant isn't there anymore, so I can't recommend it! ;-)

If you've still got time to kill, head across the bridge and explore Douglas (left) and/or North Douglas (right)... you can kill at least an hour or two driving to the end of that road in both directions before you head back to the Juneau side of the bridge and into downtown (where it WILL be busy and full of cruise passengers.) If you keep on driving through downtown past the southernmost cruise ship dock, there's a great stop at Sheep Creek where there's a hatchery and always lots of fish and a nice beach to explore. Continuing on, you'll get to the Southern "end of the road" called Thane.

Depending how much time you spend nosing about at each stop, you can easily kill a day or more driving to all 3 ends of the road...

Happy Alaska Travels!
-Case