The Seward Highway leaves town and runs the edge of Turnagain Arm, past mudflats, Dall sheep on the cliffs, and water that turns up belugas on the incoming tide. It climbs onto the Kenai Peninsula and drops into Seward on Resurrection Bay, 126 miles south of Anchorage. Most people drive it in an afternoon and sleep in town, because the boats leave in the morning.
Kenai Fjords is the reason people book this direction. Boats run out of the small-boat harbor every summer morning to the tidewater glaciers, where ice cracks off the face and drops into the water while you watch from the deck. Nearly forty glaciers pour off the Harding Icefield behind them. Book the boat for the morning after your Seward night, not the afternoon you arrive.
Exit Glacier is the only piece of the park you can drive to. A short road off AK-9 ends at the Nature Center, and a walk of about a mile up the valley reaches an overlook where the ice comes down toward you. Everything else in Kenai Fjords is water, reached by boat.
The van does not sleep in the park. You stay in Seward's municipal waterfront campgrounds, gravel loops on Resurrection Bay a few blocks from the harbor, and those loops are the piece to lock down first. The RV sites go early in summer, so hold one through Campspot and book the van second. If you get out of Anchorage late and would rather break the drive, Bird Creek on Turnagain Arm is the fallback night.
Bird Creek and the drive down Turnagain Arm
Bird Creek Campground is the first real stop south of the city, tucked in the spruce just past the Bird Creek bridge. The sites are first-come with a 35-foot limit and no hookups, and camping runs 20 dollars a site as of August 2026. If it is full the night you land, keep going south on AK-1 to Seward's waterfront rather than hunting for space in town.
Where the highway reaches Portage, a turnoff leads to the Anton Anderson tunnel, a one-lane bore shared with the railroad that is the only road into Whittier and Prince William Sound on the far side. It is the longest road-and-rail tunnel in North America, a detour worth the round trip if you have a spare afternoon, not a reason to skip Seward.
If you need more room to sleep or full hookups than a camper van gives you, a full-size RV rental in Alaska runs these same highways, just less nimble on the narrow pull-ins.
Homer and the end of the Sterling Highway
Back at the Tern Lake junction, where AK-9 breaks off for Seward, the Sterling Highway keeps west and runs all the way to Homer. The town tapers into a gravel spit that reaches out into Kachemak Bay, with glaciers hanging on the mountains across the water.
That far shore is Kachemak Bay State Park, roughly 400,000 acres of ice and forest with no road in; you get there by water taxi out of Homer, hike for the day, and come back to the spit at night. The spit campgrounds are first-come and take no reservations, so it is a stay-loose stop, not a booked one.
Denali is the other direction
Denali runs the opposite way, north up the Parks Highway, and a short rental really does one coast or the interior well, not both at once. The Alaska campervan hub lays out the other starting points, and if the north is your trip, the Denali campervan page covers the drive up and where to stay.
Where you pick up and drop off
Indie Campers keeps a depot in Anchorage close to the airport, so you can fly in, buy groceries in town, and point the van south the same day. If a one-way trip is what you want, the drop-off options and any fees are set on the listing, so check there before you book.