Whittier Travel Guide

If you want to drive to or from Whittier, you have to drive your car onto a train which goes through tunnels. That is the gateway from Turnagain Arm (an arm of Cook Inlet) to Prince William Sound. There is really not much to do in Whittier - it used to be a military base, and later they converted some of the barracks to a fish processing plant. There are spectacular views, a lot of wildlife, and plenty of hiking for the adventurous. But the big draw to Whittier is the ferry boat to Valdez: on tat ferry, you will pass by the Columbia Glacier, which, when it calves, sends pieces of ice as big as 3 football fields plunging off the face of the glacier into Prince William Sound. You will see rich wildlife, and it will be a memory of a lifetime.

Whittier is incredibly small. It was originally established as a military base for Soviet rapid response, and the landscape has not been altered too much since then. There are old, nondescript buildings and an oil storage site. Just to get there, from the mainland, you will have to drive through a one-way tunnel that is shared with trains -- talk about tunnel coordination! Anyway, the reason to come to Whittier is the natural beautify and a launch site for water site -- seeing operations.

we arrived in whittier planning a lovely bushwalk to fill in the time before our train left for anchorage - unfortunately rain really set in so we simply crossed the railway line at the designated crossing & went to the local pub - the only place open on a wet weekend - & had a lovely friendly visit with the locals - even got a free usa coin from the barmaid for our collection!