The People We Meet on the Road

I find it fascinating how many different paths we can take to end up at the exact same place at the exact same time. One of my favorite parts of traveling is hearing those stories.

What decisions did they make? What risks did they take? What opportunities did they say yes to? What brought them here, to this place, on this particular day?

During our three weeks in Alaska, we found ourselves asking that question over and over again. At visitor centers. Around campgrounds. On bush planes. At restaurants. During tours.

Almost every conversation started the same way: "So, what brought you here?"

A Summer Traveling, Not Interning

One of the first people we met was a veterinary student spending her summers traveling instead of interning.

Last year, she roadtripped the Pacific Coast. This year, she was spending three months solo in Alaska. Twelve of those days would be spent backpacking through Kobuk Valley and Gates of the Arctic, two of the most remote national parks in the United States.

I couldn’t help but think about how different that decision was from what most people would probably expect. And also thinking, what a memorable way to spend your summers while in school.

A Cubicle Worker Turned Captain

A few days later, we met a self-proclaimed former cubicle worker. She'd left her office job to take a seasonal position on a boat in Kenai Fjords National Park… despite never working on a boat before.

Now she spends her summers in Alaska, her winters on a boat in Florida, and is working toward her captain's license. Again, I found myself thinking, I never would have even thought that was an option.

Each Summer, A New Park

We met a lot of seasonal guides during our trip. Many were college students, and when we asked how they ended up spending the summer in Alaska, their answers were almost identical: "I Googled seasonal jobs in Alaska and applied."

In my head, working in Alaska had to be more complicated than that. In reality, they wanted to see Alaska, searched online for jobs, and sent in an application. A few weeks or months later, they were temporarily relocating.

We also met guides who'd turned seasonal work into a lifestyle. They had destinations, parks, and outfitters they returned to every summer and winter. That’s how they chose to build a life around doing what they loved year-round.

Of course, every lifestyle comes with tradeoffs.

Living a Seasonal Lifestyle

Our rafting guide in Wrangell-St. Elias guides multi-day rafting expeditions all over the world. While we were fascinated by his lifestyle, he reminded us that the grass can always look greener.

"You know what sounds amazing to me?" he said. "A gym."

He just wanted a gym he could go to at the same time every day.

It's normal to look at someone else's life and only see the exciting parts. Meanwhile, they're looking at yours and admiring something you probably no longer think twice about.

Funemployed and Traveling

It wasn't just students and guides who had stories to share.

We met a couple who'd been financially planning for 11 years so they could travel full-time. They finally hit the road two years prior and were now exploring Alaska in their RV.

We met another gentleman on a seven-month road trip that started in California, continued through the Yukon, and eventually reached Alaska. Along the way, he mixed national parks with local immersion experiences through Workaway.

When we asked if he was retired, he smiled. "I don't like that word," he said. "I'm just done working... I’m funemployed."

Found Home On Vacation and Never Left

Then there was our pilot in Coldfoot. She'd visited the Arctic on vacation 25 years earlier, fell in love with it, and never left.

Most people visit the Arctic during the summer months, so that’s her busy season. Winter becomes her recreational season, when she and her husband spend their free time cross-country skiing and heading into the backcountry by snowmachine.

Different Paths, Same Place

Every one of those conversations left me thinking about how differently our lives can unfold. Not because one path is better than another, but because there are so many more paths than we often realize.

That's one of my favorite things about traveling to places like Alaska. Yellowstone in the winter is another example. The more effort a place takes to reach, the more likely you are to find yourself surrounded by people with interesting stories about what brought them there.

Meeting these travelers is akin to standing under a sky full of stars. You're reminded just how much is out there beyond your corner of the world, including possibilities you may never have considered before.

The farther we get from home, the more likely we are to hear a story that makes us stop and think, Huh. I didn't realize that was an option. Sometimes, that's every bit as memorable as the destination itself.

Want more stories from our Great Alaskan Road Trip? Alaska Diaries is an immersive, day-by-day retelling of our 21 days traveling through Alaska. It’s less travel guide and more travel story, written to be read like a book, whether you’re planning your own Alaska adventure or just want to come along for ours.

Planning Alaska? Our Alaska National Parks Travel Guide is the practical one, with 9-, 14-, and 21-day itineraries, transportation logistics, places to stay, and everything we learned from more than 100 hours of planning our own trip to all eight national parks.

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