The breathtaking beauty of million-year-old glaciers, a rugged landscape, and exotic wildlife make Alaska a paradise for nature lovers. Its national forests and parks are America's largest, and the abundant coastal waters provide some of the best salmon and halibut fishing in the world. Veteran rock and ice climbers routinely assault Mount McKinley, the highest peak in North America at 20,320 feet, and the truly intrepid compete in the annual Iditarod sled dog race. Surprisingly cosmopolitan and comfortable, Anchorage is home to about half of the state's population and offers first-class restaurants, nightclubs, and entertainment.

The great Yukon River cuts the Alaskan interior almost in half, carving tremendous valleys along the way as it makes its 1, 265-mile journey from the state's border to the Bering Sea. The mazelike convergence of land and water in the famed Inside Passage of the panhandle was sculpted into its present form by thousands of years of glacial ice scoring its way toward the sea and eventually melting.