Fairbanks Travel Guides (Updated September 2026)

My trip north to the Arctic Circle with Midnight Sky Adventures was a great experience from start to finish. It was my first and probably last trip north of the Circle. Ron, the owner/operator, made it a pleasure by "breaking the ice" with early conversations among the 5 passengers in the group. He was prompt, organized, knowledgeable, pleasant, and prepared. He spoke when necessary without trying to fill space between landmarks. The tour van was well-equipped and supplied for the 13.5-hour round trip. I'm satisfied that I received good value for my money.

Ice Museum and Hot Springs are a not to be missed experience. Guide Chris shares many personal insights of living in Alaska to make the trip interesting. Unfortunately, rain clouds blocked view of Northern Lights.

My family’s fishing trip in Alaska was better than we expected. There was even a heater on the boat for southerners!!! Catching Artic Grayling was such a treat. The wildlife was an extra bonus on the trip up river. We could not have had a better experience. The memories will last forever with our son.

Ron is an absolute amazing guide! He is very knowledgeable about the pipeline, the region, the roads, and the stops! He took such good care of us! The van was very clean and comfortable, he provided an assortment of beverages and snacks. This was a small group experience and it was worth every penny. The weather didn’t cooperate so we didn’t see the northern lights, but that didn’t diminish the experience. We would definitely book this trip or any other that Ron is spearheading! Thanks so much Ron for such a wonderful adventure! Your personality and ability to make everyone feel valued will take you along way in life! Jim and Bev from Oklahoma

Had an amazing trip with Ben in Lower Chatanika yesterday, caught all limits in 2 hours. Ben is fun, accommodating, helpful and very knowledgeable. We will be coming back to go out with him over the summer with a bigger group, probably organize a custom trip.

I am so glad that we bumped into Gina at Chena Hot Springs just by sheer luck. Right off the bat, without even advertising her business, she was already educating us about the northern lights. She also kept us up to date with all the ins and outs of the northern light the next day when we did the tour with Chena Resort. She was spot on the probability and timing of us encountering the northern lights while at the resort. And she did all of this without charging us a dime just demonstrating that Gina truly cares about helping people in general and enjoys what she does.We ended up booking a formal northern lights tour with Gina the next day. She picked us up from our hotel right at 9:15PM. The drive was smooth and comfortable. When we got to the Champion Lodge, there were plentiful of snacks and drinks. She made sure all of her clients were comfortable and educated us on the science of northern lights. We got lucky and the aurora was absolutely phenomenal! It was literally popping and changing colorsn 360 degrees almost all night long.Overall, I feel like Gina's tour company is truly one of a kind. She truly cares about her clients and enjoy the things she does. I had a great time with the aurora tour with Gina and left truly satisfied. The price is extremely reasonable. Highly recommend if you are in Fairbanks (Gina also does.day tours to show you Fairbanks just fyi).

Gina stepped in when our tour companies booked with didn’t show up. We were a bit hostile as we waited an hour for our guide. Gina quickly out us at ease with her sweet personality. We had a great time at the hot springs. Toured the ice museum with her and got our wonderful appletinis! Then plenty of time to soak in the hot springs after an amazing dinner. Gina gave us recommendations on the menu so we had the scallops. Although we didn’t see northern lights she explained how she looks for activity and tried hard to find some. We loved her knoweledge for the area and were excited that she was going to be our guide the next day for the North Pole trip.

Gina was a fantastic tour guide. She was extremely knowledgeable and helpful and went above and beyond to make sure we had an excellent experience.

Kevin was absolutely wonderful. He was very knowledgeable and friendly. The tour wasn't rushed and he was very patient. I told him we cancelled our northern lights tour the night before, due to weather, and he said tonight was going to be better. We ended up booking a tour that night also. He was prompt at pick up time for both tours. He took us to a few locations. He provided hot chocolate and cider as well as reindeer sausage! All were delicious. We were able to see the northern lights in all there splendor. We were absolutely in awe!!! Kevin was determined to find the lights that night and they were eventually located. Just be patient and trust in Kevin to find them for you. Kevin took pics and gave them to us on a Google drive! So much easier than trying to take them on your own. I would definitely recommend Kevin and his tours!!!

The River Boat Excursion was an exceptional opportunity to meet not only nature as raw and beautiful as it is, but our guide, Rob. He showed us the equally raw virtue in human nature. As good as it gets.

Fun activity exploring areas in Alaska ordinary citizens are unable to access especially in the winter. Highly recommended

We went on the Fire and Ice tour to the Chena Hot Springs Resort with Gina. We enjoyed hercso much, we booked her Heart of Fairbanks tour fir the next day! It was a pleasure to spend our time with her. Gina was very quick to respond to our questions pre-tour. During she was pleasant, prompt, and attended to all details so we didn't have to. She even told our dinner restaurant it was my birthday. Her knowledge was amazing and on the rare questions she didn't know the answer, she said she didn't know but found the answers. She went above and beyond trying to show us a glimpse of the Northern Lights. She asked us a number of times to see if we wanted to see anything in particular, or if we'd like her to stop anywhere before being dropped off, etc. We saw and learned so much during our time with her. It us with high confidence we can absolutely recommend AK Bucket List Tours with Gina.

We had a great experience with Yas. He was punctual. He shared great stories about the aurora. He was very knowledgeable about the subject. And based on the dynamic data he was using, he can predict when the aurora would be prominent in the sky.It was rainy and cloudy on the day of activity. We drove 2.5 hours for sky clearance. We really didn’t see much , meaning without the iPhone camera, you couldn’t see the aurora.He offered to take us out again the next night. We accepted and had great views of the aurora.

We were in Fairbanks a day before our land journey as part of our cruise and had decided to rent a car and head towards the Chenna Hot Springs. We had seen a couple places advertising for seeing reindeer and this one was right along the way to the hot springs, so we stopped despite the website not showing any availability (the reservation system won't show anything for the same day FYI). They indicated they had an opening in about 40 minutes once the current tour completed, so we stepped next door to the cafe and grabbed a coffee and a cookie. We started off in their hut/office with Ryne learning about caribou and reindeer, what the differences were, and lots of other fun/interesting facts for maybe 10-15 minutes (legit it was interesting). Then we made our way down towards where they kept their reindeer. We knew the experience was called a "forest walk" but I think we were all a little surprised still when Ryne hooked leads to each of the 4 reindeer and handed them to us and lead us off into their woods! Yes, we were walking reindeer through the woods, as Ryne described it, kinda like walking really big lazy dogs. They were mostly interested in eating whatever fresh vegetation they could find along the way, but were pretty easy going and would come along when you coaxed them to move along. Since this was a "private" experience it really was just the 4 of us in our party, which was very nice.10/10 experience. We all kind of had the same thought, like "this is the first day of our trip and we just did THAT, not sure how the rest of our trip will compare to this. It's definitely one of our top highlights of our 12 days in Alaska.

SO FUN! We went 40mph and only had 2 people in our group. Just the best time ever and will definitely do it again

Even though I have had dogs all my life, I had never experienced how sled dogs are trained and raised. I was allowed to help harness the dogs to prepare them for a ride around the area. The dogs were happy to go for a run and loved all the extra attention that they get from visitors. A must do for any kind of animal lover.