Alaska & California – Fall 2026

The Northernmost: Alaska and the Coast Back to the Beginning

Dresden → San Francisco → Lake Tahoe → Yosemite → Los Angeles → Morro Bay → San Francisco → Anchorage → Homer → Denali → Fairbanks → Arctic Circle → Anchorage → San Francisco → Dresden · October–November 2026

(This story will be finished after the trip. What's written here is what we imagined — before reality, as always, turns out better.)

Some destinations you collect. You circle them, push them forward, save them for the right moment. For us, Alaska has been that destination for years. Big. Raw. Too big for a comma.

But we begin gently: San Francisco again, because it's the logical north of every USA trip. Golden Gate, the Peak Design Store, a Walmart grocery run — the usual in the best city on the West Coast. Then we drive to Lake Tahoe: hiking, silence, water that's already cold in October.

On to Yosemite — Hetch Hetchy, Wawona Bridge, the long hikes. We know this park now like an old book you keep opening anyway. Los Angeles with the Griffith Observatory, Venice, Santa Monica Pier, Echo Park. And Randy's Donuts, of course — that's become something like our Los Angeles entry ritual.

Highway 1 to Morro Bay: shrimp somewhere by the roadside, sunset with the otters. Big Sur the next morning — Pfeiffer State Park, McWay Falls, that waterfall that drops directly into the ocean and for which no better explanation exists than: go. Then San Francisco again, Apple Park, Golden Gate Park, maybe the Alcatraz evening tour.

And then we fly to Anchorage.

The shift is immediate. Alaska isn't a landscape. Alaska is a state of being. We explore Anchorage and Whittier — a small harbor that feels almost surreal, locked between mountains and sea. Scenic drive to Anchor Point and Homer: the end of the Homer Spit, fishing boats, eagles on the masts.

Denali is the centerpiece. The highest mountain in North America, in clouds or not, changes how you see everything else. The park is further than far. You drive one road in and feel like there's no way back — because you don't want one.

Fairbanks, and then — the Arctic Circle. An invisible line on the earth that you still feel when you're standing in front of it. No crowds. No souvenir shops. Just space and the thought: this is where Central Europe ends — not geographically, but somehow existentially.

Back via Tok to Anchorage. Flight back to San Francisco, then Dresden. Luggage, jet lag, and that quiet feeling: we saw something most people only know from maps.