Jonny Talks with Liz Perry from Travel Juneau

Juneau Alaska stands on one of the largest wilderness areas in the United States. Here you can spend your time viewing wildlife, taking the fishing trip of your life, exploring atop glaciers or enjoying the city’s shops, restaurants and artistic flare.Learn more about Juneau attractions, events and outdoor recreation. Request our visitors guide for trip planning information. Sign up for our e-newsletter and stay up to date with the latest happenings and special offers. https://www.traveljuneau.com/

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
And welcome in. This is theGo Go Travel Show. I'm your host,
Johnny Heartwell. We are podcasting livefrom the Pittsburgh Travel Showcase, and
I have a very interesting person andI've got a lot of questions. We're
talking to Liz Perry from travel Junodot com. So are you from Alaska.

(00:22):
Yes, I've lived in Alaska abouttwenty years and Travel Juno is the
Convention of Visitors bureau for the capitalcity of Alaska. It is on my
bucket list. Everybody who's ever goneto Alaska said it is a must see.
So what exactly what do you whatdo you provide? What is your
agency providing? Our agency is designedto promote Juno as a destination to independent

(00:46):
travelers, to meeting goers, meetingplanners, and business travel. And we
also provide a lot of visitor informationto our cruise visitors who come in.
Actually, we had about one pointsix million cruise passengers. This just a
just a couple of people, justa few. It is. It is
absolutely one of the hottest tickets andtravel these days, isn't it It is?

(01:07):
And cruising has course picked up postCOVID, and independent travel has picked
up post COVID. One of thethings we want folks to know is that
Juno is a place where they cancome in and spend five or seven days
and really immerse themselves in Southeast Alaska, and with a reminder that the climate
in Alaska is so vast that whatthey experience in southeast will be very different

(01:29):
from what came that. You've gota lot of questions, and we did
climate, we do. So whatdo you tell them? What do you
say? Well, one of thethings I tell them is that I have
not in almost twenty years had awinter as bad as any winter I had
in the Midwest. Juno is extremelymild because we're on the coast oh Okay,
so we hover right around twenty sevento thirty degrees. We get a

(01:51):
fair amount of snow, so there'sa lot of skiing and snowsports. We're
outside, folks, and we areout in it as much as we can
be. So many cruises they getoff at a port of destination. Is
there hiking? What else? Whatelse can do? There are tons of
things to do in Southeast Alaska,and especially in Juno as the state capitol.

(02:12):
We're home to the Alaska State Museum, which captures a lot of artifacts
and art and history from all overthe state. We have the state capitol
there where you can go in andtake take a tour, do self guided
stuff. We have more miles ofhiking trail than we do paved road.
Right in downtown Juno is incredibly walkable. You can walk end to end in

(02:37):
about fifteen to twenty minutes and seea lot of stuff, lots of mom
and pop shops, and our operatorsare almost all Juno whites. We don't
have any major corporate excursion operators,so when you take an excursion out of
Juno, you're supporting a local family. You know. I have friends who
have gone to have traveled the world, have gone to Europe and the career

(03:00):
and have gone to you know,picturesque destinations like the Grand Canyon, and
they say there is nothing like goingto Alaska. It is breathtaking. I
would have to agree with that.You know, is nestled in a fjord,
so the mountains come straight out ofthe water, and we have snow

(03:22):
that lasts in pockets throughout the summertime. And again there's just all manner of
outdoor activities that folks can do,hiking and camping, fishing, whale watching,
just getting out in the wilderness.We back up to the Tongus National
Forest, which is the largest forestin the United States, and we're a

(03:43):
maritime rainforest, so it is eitherovercast or rainy. About two hundred and
fifty days of the year. Youget to see the northern lights at all
when we're lucky and the activity isvery high. If you know, we
are grace without some cloud cover.Yes, do get northern license. I've
actually got pictures on my phone thatI took from my house. Really.

(04:04):
Yeah. So when somebody asked youabout Alaska, what are the frequently asked
questions you get? Well, weget a lot of travelers who come to
us for some basic information. Andone of the things that that we kind
of scratch our heads about a littlebit is that folks do not have a
clear understanding of how big Alaska is, and they think they can see the

(04:28):
whole state in maybe five days.That's simply not possible. Yeah, So
so we get frequent inquiries, Oh, I want to come in and maybe
you know, scout around, seeif I can find a place off grid.
And it depends on how off griddo you really want to be.
You want to get off the grid. There's there's there's people that are off
the grid. That's not you knowthat they're not coming back. Yeah,

(04:49):
there's that, so you know.But but you know, we have people
who say, oh, I wantto you know, get out in the
wilderness and have my own little place. And we have to ask how comfortable
are you being three and a halfhours by helicopter from the closest doctor,
you know, so really getting themthinking about how big You have a lot

(05:11):
of reality shows of people living inAlaska and and you know that some town
you know may not see you know, you know, uh an uncovered road
with snow for for months at atime. Well, that's that's right.
And that can be true pretty muchany place, you know, especially in
the wintertime where you the snow startsand you get it paid, you know,

(05:32):
scraped off enough that you can getyour vehicle through there. Juno is
not like that. Juno can belike that. Yeah, we get it.
We get a fair amount of snowat sea level. Matter of fact,
over the last weekend, the holidayweekend, we got over thirty inches
of snow between Sunday and Monday nighthad a major blizzard and we were out
cleaning our driveway four times during Monday, just trying to keep ahead of it.

(05:55):
So when the people are visiting Juno, is it usually by airfare airline
or is it cruises or get weget both. The vast majority of visitors
Sugino to come in by cruise,so that happens between first part of April
and about the end of September,first part of October. Right now,
the cruise season is starting first ofApril and not ending until the end of

(06:17):
October. High season is right aroundJuly from your first part of August.
And the really amazing thing about youknow Juno two, especially in the springtime,
is that every day you get moredaylight than the day before and that
is so much fun. All Right, if somebody is coming in on cruise,
what's what's an adequate adequate amount oftime to really see Alaska? Because

(06:40):
because I couldn't imagine just seven daysand being able to see everything I wanted
to see in Alasta. If yousee, if you want to see most
of Alaska, we do encourage folksto take include the land package so that
you come up through southeast through theInside Passage, then go cross Golf and
then take either coach or train fromeither Seward or Year and then go north

(07:00):
to Anchoration, then north to Denali. The landscape is completely different, the
climate is completely different, and you'regoing to see things everywhere that you did
not see in a different part ofthe state. It's amazing. Liz,
Thank you so much. If somebodywants more information, what's your website Traveljuno
dot com and we have our twentyfour visitor guide located there. You could
go on there and order a guideand there's numbers there. If you want

(07:23):
to call and get more information fromlocals. You will get personalized information from
a local if you call Travel Gno. Liz, thank you so much.
Thank you for having me