Routes · North America

Seoul to Southeast Alaska: Ketchikan and Sitka

Seoul → Ketchikan → Sitka

Totem poles in the rainforest & Russian Alaska Best season (general guide): May–Sep

Southeast Alaska is a maze of forested islands and fjords, reached only by sea or air, where Tlingit, Haida and Russian history meet. This route spends three nights in Ketchikan and three in Sitka. From Seoul you'll connect through Seattle to Ketchikan, then fly on to Sitka. Ketchikan is on Revillagigedo Island and is the southeasternmost major settlement in Alaska. Its downtown is a National Historic Landmark District.

How to pace it: Spend days one to three in Ketchikan: day one, Creek Street; day two, totem parks; day three, floatplane over Misty Fjords. Then spend days four to six in Sitka: day four, fly to Sitka, then the cathedral; day five, totem trail and the raptor centre; day six, wildlife boat trip.

Creek Street, a boardwalk on stilts over a salmon creek, was once the town's red-light district. The area has one of the largest collections of standing totem poles in the world, at Totem Bight and Saxman. Misty Fjords National Monument, east of the town, is a wilderness of granite cliffs and waterfalls, visited by floatplane or boat.

Sitka is a unified city-borough on Baranof Island, facing the Pacific. The transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States took place in Sitka in 1867, after the Alaska Purchase. Sitka National Historical Park has a trail through the forest lined with totem poles, and it marks the site of a battle between the Tlingit and the Russians in 1804.

St Michael's Cathedral, the Russian Orthodox church in the centre, holds icons from the Russian period. The Alaska Raptor Center cares for injured bald eagles and other birds. The Alaska Marine Highway ferries link the towns of the Inside Passage. May to September is the main season, though rain is common all year.

Sitka's consolidated land area is one of the largest of any city in the United States. Salmon is the region's main catch, and Ketchikan calls itself the salmon capital of the world.

Safety: Canada's advice for US is to take normal security precautions (updated 10 Oct 2026), and this is a domestic US trip with no State Department advisory.

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