We left Anchorage after shopping for the stuff we would need. Honestly, shopping in Anchorage is the best thing because the prices are closest to what you would pay in the lower 48. Groceries in the smaller towns were super expensive, but we understand why! We left Anchorage and traveled toward Talkeetna. We decided to stop at the Iditarod Headquarters on the way to Talkeetna. It was so much fun and we would highly recommend it. They have a $10 sled dog team run and my guys loved it so much. They went around twice. If you are interested, be sure to arrive by 3pm. The place is open until 5pm, but the dogs stopped running around 3-4pm the day we were there, so be sure to get there earlier if you want to do the run. I recommend it and it was one of the cheapest things we did in Alaska, and it was so much fun!
After visiting at the headquarters, we continued on our drive to Talkeetna. We had reservations at Talkeetna Camper Park and it was one of the nicest RV parks we stayed at. It is about a 10 minute walk into town, which is super amazing given that there is little to no parking in the town of Talkeetna. We walked into town each morning or would drop everyone off in town and then park back at the Camper Park and the driver would walk into town.
The town of Talkeetna is adorable and there are so many yummy places to eat and fun places to shop. Roadhouse in Talkeetna is a popular breakfast place, but due to COVID, they aren’t open for a sit down breakfast. We decided to visit their bakery window and grabbed cookies, cream cheese brownies and cinnamon rolls which were delicious. The molasses cookies were the best we’ve ever had and the cinnamon rolls were also the best. They had two different kinds: a Frosty which is a traditional cinnamon roll and a Razy which is a raspberry cinnamon roll. The raspberry one was so good! We walked around the town and did some shopping.
We ate dinner at Denali Brewpub and most of us ordered fish and chips, which was one of the best fish and chips we had the entire trip. It was delicious!
We also had to grab some spinach bread because you can’t visit Talkeetna without getting spinach bread. Make sure you jump in line and grab some…they were also selling this delicious rice bowl thing, but we were pretty stuffed so we didn’t grab one. It was VERY WARM when we were in Talkeetna…sun was shining so we also grabbed some Brazilian Limeade which was refreshing on a warm day! My oldest is VERY picky and he ate the spinach bread, several pieces without complaining even though he HATES spinach. Kids!
Along with the amazing food spots, there are also all of these adorable shops to walk through. We love the history of having a cat for their mayor…my boys loved that so much since we have two cats that we adore! The boys grabbed ice cream from the Nagley’s Market and while I was too stuffed to eat any, I snuck a small taste and it was yummy. There is also a cute ice cream spot that sells Fireweed ice cream, but it was sold out when we were there.
If you walk all the walk down the main street area, you are going to hit a dead end. This is the spot where you can view Denali on a clear day. We were not able to see it, but we did spot a bear that made its way towards us at a pretty fast pace where we had to move pretty quickly to get out of the way. There is a small pathway that runs to the left of the campground area that is on the right.
We loved our time in Talkeetna!