It is hard to believe that a place as beautiful as Seward exists. Surrounded on all sides by Kenai Fjords National Park, Chugach National Forest, and Resurrection Bay, Seward offers all the quaint realities of a small railroad town with the bonus of jaw-dropping scenery. This little town of about 2,750 citizens was founded in 1903 when survey crews arrived at the ice-free port and began planning a railroad to the Interior. Since its inception, Seward has relied heavily on tourism and commercial fishing.

Kenai Fjords National Park’s famous Holgate Glacier is a spectacularly active river of ice. The surrounding glaciated landscape paints a dramatic portrait of the rugged mountains in contrast to the cold blue ice of the glacier. On approach, the waters leading up to Holgate Glacier may be peppered with bits of ice and the crackling noise of ancient air bubbles being released from small bergs. Periodically loud cannon-like blasts emanate from the glacier, and some are accompanied by calving events off the ice front. 

The Chiswell Islands are part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, and deservedly so. Small bays, inlets, and sea cliffs are populated by innumerable seabirds including Black-legged Kittiwakes, Pelagic Cormorants, Horned and Tufted Puffins, as wells as guillemots, auklets, and murrelets. The Chiswell Islands are blessed with towering cliffs and sea caves offering up spectacular scenery and a Steller sea lion rookery that bustles as the marine mammals commute to feeding grounds, socialize, and care for their pups.

Katmai National Park is on the top of many “Best of Alaska” lists because of its otherworldly landscape, including 15 active volcanoes. In Kukak Bay it is possible to view the abundant wildlife and raw beauty of this magnificent scenery. Kukak Bay is well known for its concentration of bears and the salmon on which they feed, and this is one of the prime areas in this region for bear viewing.

Geographic Harbor is at the head of Amalik Bay in the Katmai National Park, and the brown bears here are ubiquitous. Bears can be spotted digging for clams on the low tide, munching on berries, roots, and grasses ashore or, most famously, fishing for salmon in the rapids of clear mountain streams. Not only the bears enjoy fishing in Geographic Harbor – keen anglers journey great distances to catch halibut, ling cod and rockfish in the bay. The waters around the harbor are also known to be fishing grounds for seals, otters, countless seabirds, and whales.

This stunning and nearly uninhabited archipelago is home to some of the largest populations of native and undisturbed wildlife in the United States. There are 2.5 million birds here, almost half the breeding seabirds of the Alaska Peninsula. Large numbers of seabirds including Ancient Murrelets, Parakeet Auklets, Horned Puffins, Northern Fulmars and jaegers, and over a million murres are on hand here. The surrounding sea is home to sea otters, sea lions, seals, Dall’s porpoises, Pacific white-sided dolphins, and whales.

Chignik is a fishing village on the Alaskan Peninsula and home to just under 100 year-round inhabitants. Most of the houses in the community are connected by a boardwalk that fringes a local stream and neighborhood kids can be seen riding their bicycles back and forth on its length. In the summer months, the population doubles, as the fishing gets better and the town supports a couple of fish-processing plants. Chignik is a remote outpost at the doorstep of the Aleutian Island chain and offers up a true taste of Alaskan outback life.

The Aleutian island of Unga holds an ancient petrified wood forest and a more recent ghost town that was the site of a small gold rush in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The village was eventually abandoned in the 1960’s and now has a somewhat somber appearance. Many of the houses have collapsed and are overgrown with brilliant fuchsia fireweed wildflowers. From a distance, the church looks intact, but from up close it is apparent that the roof is standing on the ground, and the walls have completely collapsed. 
 

The crumpled peaks, and tranquil scenery, of Dutch Harbor, belies its history as one of the few places on American soil to have been directly attacked by the Japanese - who bombed the significant US military base here during the Second World War. Located on a string of islands, which loops down into the Pacific from Alaska, a visit to this Aleutian Island destination offers comprehensive military history and extraordinary ocean scenery. Hike the volcanic, gloriously green landscapes, and look out for wonderful wildlife, like bald eagles, as they survey the surroundings. 

The city of Saint Paul is located on a narrow peninsula on the southern tip of St. Paul Island, the largest of five islands in the Pribilofs. These islands are located in the middle of the Bering Sea between the United States and Russia. St Paul’s lies 240 miles north of the Aleutian Islands, 300 miles west of the Alaska mainland, and 750 air miles west of Anchorage. The city of St. Paul is the only residential area on the island. 

St. Matthew Island is an extremely remote island in the middle of the Bering Sea, more than 200 miles from the nearest Alaska village. Even by Alaskan standards, it is a lonely place. At the most southerly point of the 32-mile long island, at Cape Upright, the black sand and gravel beaches give way to massive sea cliffs that exceed heights of over 1000 ft. These are home to countless nesting murres, kittiwakes, cormorants and other seabirds.

Hall Island is one of the most remote islands in Alaska. Every summer this small rock island, in the middle of the Bering Sea, comes alive as about a million seabirds gather to breed and nest. They cling shoulder to shoulder on every available rock ledge. The most common seabirds include black-legged kittiwakes, common and thick-billed murres, auklets, cormorants and northern fulmars. 

While at sea, enjoy wine tastings, designer boutiques, language and dance classes. Take in a matinee movie, check the market or your e-mail in the Internet Point, slip away with a novel from the library to a sunny chaise or with a movie to your suite. Or just take in the sun poolside. The choice is yours.

Anadyr is the administrative center of Chukotka Autonomous Region and home to approximately 13,000 people. Like many northern towns that have short summers and very long winters, Anadyr is painted in all colors of the rainbow to lift the spirits of its inhabitants in winter. Under Governor Roman Abramovich, the well-known oligarch, big money had been invested to develop and revive local infrastructure and industries that had collapsed with the break-up of the Soviet era. 

Gabriela Bay is located south and west of the Bering Strait along the coast of the federal subject Russian state of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug (population ~52,000). The bay abuts wetlands that dot the coastline, which in warmer seasons are lush with wildflowers like dwarf azaleas and forget-me-nots that can completely cover the tundra at their peak. While animal sightings are not guaranteed, visitors may keep an eye peeled for occurrences of walruses, brown bears or beluga whales.

A U-shaped bay on the Bering Sea, Anastasia Bay appears to be carved out of the mountainous cliffs that make up the land that surrounds the tundra-like Koryak Mountains in Kamchatka Krai, Russia. The rare visitor comes to the bay hoping to walruses and seals, and birders search for Slaty-backed Gulls, Pelagic Cormorants, Horned Puffins, Tufted Puffins, Black-legged Kittiwakes, and White Wagtails, White-fronted Geese, Bean Geese and Whooper Swans. 

Peter Bay is a small inlet at the foot of the Koryak Mountain range well north of the Kamchatka Peninsula. At the entrance of the bay is a Largha seal haul-out site and a small hidden lagoon flanked by the ocean and the bay. The southern end of the bay has several small lakes that are dammed behind a moraine ridge; the remnant of an ancient glacier. The lakes feed a spectacular waterfall. The western and eastern sides of the bay have steep cliffs that seabirds favor for nesting sites. Their busy comings and goings from nest to ocean feeding grounds punctuate this Far Eastern Russian location.

Six nautical miles south of the entrance to Natalii Bay are the spectacular sea cliffs of Bogoslav Island. The small island rises to 424 meters (1,391 feet) above sea level and is a perfect place to spot Pigeon, Brünnich’s, and Common Guillemots, Black-legged Kittiwakes, Harlequin Ducks, Horned Puffins, White Wagtails, Pelagic Cormorants and Slaty-backed Gulls. Walrus can also be seen at a nearby haul-out.

Due west of Bogoslof Island, a mountain of 787 meters (2,582 feet) marks the entrance to Pavel Bay. Brown bears often walk along the slopes of the bay as it winds towards low-lying tundra dissected by tumbling mountain streams. This bay and others close by are used by nomadic reindeer herders who follow the cycles of life in Kamchatka. The people herd hundreds of reindeer over great distances from their inland grazing areas down to the coast. Here the reindeer graze on the salty coastal grasses that supplement their diet.

Enjoy wine tastings, designer boutiques, language and dance classes onboard. Take in a matinee movie, check the market or your e-mail in the Internet Point, slip away with a novel from the library to a sunny chaise or with a movie to your suite. Or just take in the sun poolside. The choice is yours.

Like bookends, towering cliffs composed of light-colored granite and streaked by darker rock stand on each side of a large sheltered bay in the spectacular scenery of Cape Kuyvyveen. The sandy beach lies at the head of the bay with rolling tundra behind. The sheer granite rocks, distinct basalt caves, and arches of the cape are home to thousands of Tufted Puffins that nest in rocky crevasses. Despite the cliffs on either side of the bay being quite close together, the adjacent terrains are slightly different and each attracts different species of birds. 

Provideniya is a former Soviet military port at the southern limit of the Arctic ice pack. With slightly less than 2000 inhabitants, many of whom are Yupik, it is the largest town and administrative center of the Providensky District. Started as a depot for the Northeast Passage traffic, it now is a port of entry to the Russian Far East and since the decline of the Soviet Union eco-tourism has boosted the local economy. The town has a Technical School and a fascinating museum with interesting and well-presented exhibits about the natural history and wildlife of the region. 

Nome is located on the edge of the Bering Sea, on the southwest side of the Seward Peninsula. Unlike other towns which are named for explorers, heroes or politicians, Nome was named as a result of a 50-year-old spelling error. In the 1850's an officer on a British ship off the coast of Alaska noted on a manuscript map that a nearby prominent point was not identified.