Phase 6 – Alaskan 2015 Adventure: Exploring the Kenai Peninsula in a RV Rental

RVing to Alaska is on the bucket list of almost every RVer we’ve ever talked to. It’s known for it’s wild beauty that is ideal for RVing – big wide open spaces, amazing scenery, lots of boondocking opportunities and just simply unforgettable experiences.

So for the next phase of our Summer 2015 Alaskan adventure – we wanted to integrate in some RVing. And we wanted to see if the next best option to driving our own RV to Alaska was renting one.

The Rental

Why We Rented an RV

We’ve been full time RVers now for 9 years, and despite intentions we’ve just never made it up to Alaska.

It’s a major commitment.

Each way, the trip is over 2000 miles from Seattle to Fairbanks – and that’s of course presuming you’re starting from the Pacific Northwest. Plus figure in another 1-2000 miles (and a couple months) to explore around the state decently.

For comparison, in a typical year, we maybe travel 8000 miles.

Fuel price wise, this year would have been the year to do it in our own RV.

But instead, we opted to have our bus renovated and explore Alaska a different way.

We knew that after weeks of traveling by trains, ship and staying with generous hosts – we’d want some time in our own space on our own schedule for a bit. Sure, we could have rented a car and hotels.

But we still wanted to experience RVing in Alaska. It’s our roots, and we love the lifestyle of living in a mobile vessel. We love being able to make it up as we go.

Renting an RV was just a natural decision – and could possibly be less than the hotel/car option.

How we Found Our Rental

We started of course with the big RV rental companies – Cruise America, Great Alaskan Holidays and ABC Motorhomes.

Given this was late April – there were limited options left for June. The remaining stock was all priced at $250-350 per night, before extras and taxes. Easily making a week long rental in the $2200-2500 range.

With all the advertising they plaster on rentals, we’d also essentially be living in a moving billboard. Not to mention announcing to the rest of Alaska that we’re renting an RV and are likely inexperienced RVers.

We really wanted something a bit less.. touristy. More independent.

Then we remembered RVShare.com that allows individuals to rent out their personal RVs to others (kind of like the AirBnB of RVs).

There were tons of listings for Anchorage and more reasonably priced in the $50-150 per night range. We sent out inquiries to about 20 units listed that we were interested in.

We only got one response back.

It was for a unit listed at $90/night – but the owner responded asking $130 for our June rental time frame, saying the $90/night was the winter rate. It felt a bit like bait and switch.

There were several other things about RVShare that concerned us:

• Many of the photos looking like stock photos
• No prior renter feedback
• Despite asking for your rental dates – the availability and bookings didn’t seem to be handled by the site.

We reached out to the RVShare’s founders to ask some questions and got on a phone call with Joel – who even before we could ask our questions, addressed all of our concerns. The company is somewhat new and they launched with essentially a working model of their bigger plans.

They are gearing up to launch a second version in the coming months that will greatly improve the user experience.

We wish them the best into the future, because the concept is pretty cool (not that we’d ever consider renting out our own RV.)

The sole individual who responded to our rental inquiry was Tom of Alaska Family Motorhomes – who is a small family owned RV rental business with a fleet of a handful of units.

All older, all unmarked and all reasonably priced. They also include just about everything in their price – unlimited miles, unlimited generator use and basic pots/pans.

Tom was extremely helpful in answering our questions about things like insurance, availability, deposits and coordinating the RV pick-up. We were also charmed when they offered to pick us up at the train station and get us into our RV the night before our rental started – saving us both cab fare and a hotel.

We decided to take a chance on an older unit, save some money and support a small local business with a pretty outdated looking website.

All and all, we were happy with our choice and impressed with the professional yet casual approach of Alaska Family Motorhomes.

What We Rented

We really wanted as small of a unit as we could get.

A bed, a basic kitchen & bath and a table would be all we’d needed. It’s just us and two backpacks staying in a combo rental car & motel room. And heck, we started out full timing in super tiny travel trailers. We actually love micro spaces.

So when I saw that Alaska Family Motorhomes had a 22′ Class-C available – we were all over it.

We rented a 1996 Damon Ultrasport, which had a lower and upper bed. Not that we needed two beds, but having never slept on a cab-over bed we weren’t sure if that would workable for us. So it was nice to have the option. (We ended up splitting our nights between the two beds – we loved the views up on top! But sometimes needed a break from having little head room.)

There weren’t any interior photos posted of the unit on their website, but we took a chance on it anyway. And it was a perfect size for this adventure.

Our Week around the Kenai Peninsula

The Kenai Penisula sits to the south of Anchorage, where we’d be picking up our rental. It was recommended to us many times, and was an easy direction for us to head. We wouldn’t have to drive too many miles, and the Peninsula seemed to offer an abundance of things to explore over a week.

Our general destination was Homer, as we knew our return cruise south would be out of Seward – and we’d be exploring that soon enough.

Our train from Denali arrived to Anchorage just after 8pm, and true to their word – Alaska Family Motorhome picked us up in our RV right at the station. We got some quick instructions on operating the RV, handled the paperwork, made the final payment.. and off we went!

First Night: Turnagain Arm

We didn’t know how long it would take for us to get on the road, but since it was such an efficient process getting the keys to the rig – we made a quick stop at a grocery store and started heading east out Seward Highway.

It was staying light well after midnight, making getting a few miles in easy while enjoying the gorgeous drive along the Turnagain Arm.

In Alaska, the general rule is that unless a pull-out is marked otherwise – overnighting is allowed.

And this section has some AMAZING pull outs with kajillion dollar views. We decided to pick one a few miles outside Anchorage and make that our first stop.

Ahhh.. we were on the road. On our own terms. In our own space. With a week ahead of us to explore!

Bliss.

Second Night: Deep Creek

We slept pretty darn well, and then started back on the road in the morning – finishing our way east to the end of Turnagain Arm. And then we were on the Kenai Peninsula traversing mountain ranges.

There’s not much cellular signal out that way, but it sure is beautiful.

We reached the west coast of the peninsula and started to keep our eyes out for an area with both great AT&T signal (hint: Verizon is just moving into Alaska, and AT&T is king right now) and great views.

We passed through the town of Ninilchik then spotted a little campground on the water that wasn’t listed in our All Stays app. We headed down the hill to discover it’s the Deep Creek State Park Campground (our review) – all first come first serve dry camping for $15/night.

Works for us! We snagged a great site with a great view.. and enjoyed an evening of strolling the beach and contemplating life.

Nights 3-5: Homer

By this time we had now had two nights of dry camping in our rental RV and a strong reminder that these things don’t come with an inverter or hefty battery setup. (An inverter allows the 12v house batteries to be converted to 110v, so that you can plug non-12v stuff in and utilize the battery power.)

Even if we had brought 12v charging gear for our laptops, there was only one 12v outlet in the entire coach – tied to the chassis battery. Not ideal.

So to charge our laptops or run the microwave, we had to run the generator while off grid. That meant running a 3000w generator for a couple hours to get a full charge on our gadgets. Fine while we were underway and heading into an overnight stop, but we were desiring a few days still.

For the next stop, electrical hook-ups would be most desired. And a bathhouse would be mighty nice too, since the shower was so super tiny in the RV.

South we headed towards Homer in search of the perfect spot.

We drove out the Homer Spit, and it was bustling with activity. There are plenty of waterfront RV parks with amenities out there that would have been fine – but they were all super packed and priced at $50-80/night.

Then we drove by the Driftwood Inn RV Park (our review) in Old Town – right next to the Elks Lodge which is another popular place to stay (but we wanted a bathhouse). They had water front pull in spots for $49/night – and they weren’t booked up. Walking distance to dining & groceries, an entrance to the beach, workable WiFi and a great little bath house made this stay delightful.

Sure, it’s more than we would consider paying per night in our normal RVing lower 48 lifestyle – but it was perfect.

Besides, we were celebrating our engagement 🙂 Yes friends, with the US Supreme Court decision legalizing same sex marriage – we’ve decided to make our life commitment to each other legal too. We just never felt right taking advantage of those privileges when many of our dear friends couldn’t. Instead we had drafted up legal paperwork to best protect each other and our intentions. All and all it’s not a big change in our relationship, we consider our partnership a higher order than a legal piece of paper.

Night 6: Johnson Lake

It’s amazing how quickly a week goes by, and it was time to head back north. We used the Traveler’s Guide to Alaska Camping book that came in the rental to scope out a potential scenic spot. The book was very well laid out and descriptive of the options all over Alaska, we were very impressed by it.

There seems to be two types of general campgrounds in these areas – those for fishing, and those for camping.

The fishing campgrounds are built to fit as many RVs in an area at once with little space between them. Whereas the camping campgrounds have actual space around.

Johnson Lake SRA (our review) is such a campground, and just what we were seeking – state run, first come first serve and only $15/night for dry camping (yup, back to the generator).

We had a relaxing stay, that nicely broke up the drive back to Anchorage.

Last Night: Turnagain…again

Did you know that Turnagain Arm was named as such because when Captain Cook was navigating these parts, he came up the arm looking for the Northwest Passage. He came to the end and realized he had to ‘Turn Again’.

After our first magical night along the arm, we knew we wanted to return to Turnagain, again.

We stopped at a little pull off to enjoy the view, and noticed there were surfers gearing up.

Hmmm.. surfers.. in Alaska? That could only mean one thing.

TIDAL BORE!

We had read about this phenomoenon – with a huge tidal swing in these parts, the rushing incoming tide forms a substantial wave as it enters the arm. And we had serendipitiuosly arrived at the right time, on a full moon night no less.

As Chris was helping one of the surfers zip up his suit, he gave us the advice to head on down the road a mile or two to mile marker 99.3 – where the best view is at. It’s generally where the surfers paddle out to catch the wave and ride it back a couple miles.

What a sight it was. We were so excited that we turned on Livestream to share with whoever was around (the archive is still available if you want to see it).

We took a lot of video clips from our Alaska trip, and we’ll get them produced soon – I’m hesitant to do too much video production on my low res laptop screen while out on this trip. Oh, and heck – we’ve just not had a lot of free time lately anyway.

But the serendipity didn’t stop there.

After the tidal bore amazement, we headed on down the road and pulled into the same pull out we stayed in our first night. There was another RV already parked in the lot so we gave them plenty of space. After a bit, it dawned on us – we KNOW this RV!

It was Hector and Brenda of Island Girl Walkabout!  We had compared notes with them earlier, and determined our paths likely wouldn’t be crossing.. and here we were, randomly at the same turnout. We knocked on their door.. and had a wonderful evening catching up!

They treated us to breakfast in the morning, which was very appreciated – as we were on Operation ‘Clean out the Fridge’ before needing to turn the rental in. We shared some bandwidth, since their Verizon wasn’t getting enough signal.

Early afternoon we drove the final miles into Anchorage. We fueled up the RV, dumped the tanks, filled the fresh water and found a wash bay before turning the RV back in.

What a wonderful week that went by way too quickly!

We loved renting an RV in Alaska, and found it a great way to explore on this adventure. The hardest thing to adjust to in the rental versus our own RV was lack of cat. We’ve been doing pretty good being apart from Kiki until this point. It just felt really really weird to open the door and not have her greeting us, or sitting in my lap while driving.

Thoughts on Renting and RVing in Alaska

Over the years, we’ve had many questions about renting an RV – particularly if it’s a good idea to check out full time RVing. So we decided to address that question in last month’s live video chat, streamed directly from our rental.

If you’d like to get some more insights into the rental process – we shared a bunch about the ups and downs of renting an RV, what you can learn from the experience, tips for renting and gave a video tour of our rental. The archive of that chat is now available:

Here’s some of the thoughts in writing if you don’t have time or bandwidth for an hour long video.

Costs

Here’s our costs associated with our RV Rental for a week:

• 7-Day Rental (including taxes, linens and insurance): $1246
• Camping Fees: $187
• Fuel: $167
• Propane: $4
• RV Wash: $10
• Dump Fees: $0

Total: $1614

Tips for Renting and RVing Alaska

We are very thankful to our friends Ben & Rebecca, who run His & Hers Alaska – a site dedicated to sharing about RVing in Alaska, with a lot of tips for us lower 48 folks heading north.

We learned a lot about places to stop, rules of the road and warnings about Alaska – and they gave us a lot of personal advice to make our experience even better.  Here’s some of our favorite articles from their site that were particularly helpful:

• 48 Hours in Anchorage, an RV’ers Itinerary.
• Surviving Alaska: 10 Laws You Need To Know Before Driving To Alaska  (Did you know it’s not only stupid, but illegal, to wake a sleeping bear??)
• Surviving Alaska: 12 Ways To Stay Safe On Your RV Vacation!
• RV Rentals In Alaska
• Our Top 5: Favorite Places to Camp on the Kenai Peninsula

In addition, we’ll add a few tips of our own:

• Know what is included with your RV Rental – such as amenities (linens, pots/pans, etc.), mileage, road limitations and generator usage. But more importantly, know the insurance coverage. Alaska Family Motorhomes asked us get a binder from our insurance company, or pay them a $75 fee to have their insurance cover us under their full coverage policy. We checked with our agent (Gina of Epic-Insurance) who confirmed our policy would cover us if we were renting an RV that weighed less than 10,000 lbs (ours was registered at 7000), and she didn’t seem concerned over the option of us being covered under the company’s policy. So we paid the $75, knowing we had a backup with our insurance too.
• Rental RVs are basic. Their electrical systems are not going to be setup like what your own RV might be. Most have no inverters, weak batteries, sub-par facilities, stiff beds and no awnings. And definitely no solar. They’re basically designed for tourists to make it ‘pole to pole’.
• There are a LOT of RVs in Alaska. I don’t think we’ve ever seen such a RV-to-auto percentage anywhere outside of Quartzite. Most roads are 2-lane, and it is state law that if you have 5 vehicles held up behind you – you must use a turn out and let them pass.

• 

  There are turns out all over the place! Use them. Rest often. Enjoy the views. Take in a picnic lunch. There’s no reason to rush. We’re going to miss how easy it is to just pull off and overnight anywhere you pretty much please.

• Camping reservations not required. Despite all of the RVs, you really don’t need to make reservations to find great camping – unless there’s a specific spot you absolutely want to be, or maybe on a busy holiday weekend. We were able to pull in and find things last minute with no problem.
• Bring cash/checkbooks. If you think you might stay in state parks or public parks, be sure to bring a checkbook or cash. Most are done iron ranger style, and require inserting exact payment into an envelop. (We almost ran out of checks!)

• 

  Cellular Coverage. AT&T is king of cellular coverage in many parts of Alaska. Verizon is just starting to move in, and is workable in some locations, and stronger in others But we kept connected at all of our stops on solid 4G signals with AT&T. (We updated our app Coverage? just before leaving to make sure we had the most current carrier maps.)

Will we RV to Alaska?

Yes, our time in Alaska whet our appetite, and we’ll definitely want to return to Alaska and explore more. RVing is definitely a great way to explore Alaska, and fits our travel style well.

But in our newly renovated bus? The jury is out on this. Not only is the road long to get there and back, it can be a bit slow going and rough. Almost every one of our RVing friends we met up with was dealing with some sort of repair from damage done by the drive.

After renting an older and smaller Class-C, our interests were piqued at the possibility of buying a similar unit specifically for getting to and from Alaska, Baja and Burning Man. Basically, a mobile vacation home for taking places we want more agility and less risk to our home.

We’ll see how that idea shakes out over time.

Follow our Summer 2015 Alaskan Adventure:

• Planning Our Great Alaskan Adventure
• Phase 1 — Alaskan 2015 Adventure: Amtrak Train Travel from St. Louis to Vancouver, BC
• Phase 2 — Alaskan 2015 Adventure: Touring Vancouver, BC
• Phase 3 — Alaskan 2015 Adventure: Northbound Cruise to Alaska
• Phase 4 – Alaskan 2015 Adventure: Alaska Railroad GoldStar Service to Fairbanks
• Phase 5 – Alaskan 2015 Adventure: Adventurer Class Railroad from Fairbanks to Anchorage via Denali

What’s Next: We still have two more chapters to catch up on (whew, these take a lot of time to compile – but I know we’ll personally appreciate them to reflect on in the future, and hopefully some useful information to some of you). We’re now in Vancouver for the week, and then will move on to Seattle early next week for a few days. Then it’s back to St. Louis for cat snuggles.

Bus Update: Master Tech RV has been working on some secret projects for us this week that we’ll reveal later. But they have now masked off non-paintable parts of the bus and the roof has received a coat of primer, and it’s first coat of paint!  We’ve received word that our new custom windows should be shipping within a week.