We Built a Bed in Our Car and Hit the Road to Alaska

It’s been raining for three days straight. We’re on our road trip to Alaska, driving along what’s supposedly one of the most beautiful highways in the world, but aside from a beaten-up road and bears wandering along the shoulder, we haven’t caught a single stunning view. Three thousand kilometres from Calgary and 30 hours of driving — 25 of them in the rain. What the guidebooks and travel agencies won’t tell you is that those picture-perfect, almost kitschy photos they use to sell the trip aren’t the reality of every day.

After two weeks of camping in Hawaii, we set off in our car — complete with a DIY bed built inside — heading for Alaska. Our journey through Canada and the USA would take us nearly three months. We’d sleep at campsites, but also in supermarket car parks or tucked away somewhere off the main roads. We’d scramble up mountains, occasionally get dressed up and clean for a trip into town, and other times go days without a shower — simply because there’d be nowhere to wash, or no money for a campsite. We tracked every single expense in a spreadsheet, and you can check it out anytime. We’d spent the previous five months working in Canada to save up for this trip, having lived there for nearly a year with just a short break over Christmas.

Our journey began on Thursday, 29 June, from the Canadian city of Calgary. First stop: Lake O’Hara, reportedly the most beautiful lake in the Rocky Mountains. But if there was something we could forget, we forgot it. We had to turn back several times, which meant we were running late. You can’t just show up at Lake O’Hara — you have to book a shuttle bus three months in advance, and it only runs during summer. We’d been waiting a year, and instead of the two nights at the lakeside campsite we’d hoped for, we only managed to snag one.

The bus departed at 10:30, meeting time was 10:10. We rocked up at 10:15. Lukáš nearly forgot his hiking boots, and I packed everything we didn’t need while leaving behind everything we did. And so, inevitably, we ended up at the mountain campsite with barely any food. Again. Other hikers had entire bags full of supplies, while we had a few energy bars, two bananas, two tins of soup, and some cashews. For two days of mountain trekking. The one stroke of luck — which we didn’t even appreciate at the time — was the weather. In Canada, it was still on our side.

No surprise, then, that on the second day — when we set off on a more demanding six-hour hike — we were so lightheaded we could barely see the trail in front of us. A brutal ascent gaining over 500 metres of elevation in just 1.5 kilometres was hitting me so hard I had to stop every five minutes. On top of it, my stomach was staging a noisy protest, and all I had to quiet it was a small handful of cashews. When we finally reached the summit, a group of Canadians joined us and pointed out a bear roaming the valley below. We let them go ahead because we had to navigate a narrow path around the mountainside. Then I noticed they’d stopped and were staring back at us. I figured they were probably nervous about the bear and wanted to stick together in a bigger group.

“Did you know a grizzly was following you? It was about 100 metres behind you!” they shouted as we caught up. Together, we tried to figure out how to warn the people at the summit, where the bear was now heading. We waved at them, but there was no chance they could see us, let alone understand what we were trying to say. Then, in the distance, we heard a whistle — and we knew they’d spotted the bear themselves. After making sure everyone was safe, we legged it back down to catch the first bus to our car.

We’re driving our beloved route — one that’s etched into our hearts. We’d driven it so many times the previous summer that we could name the mountain peaks and lakes as they appeared one by one before us. The road from Lake Louise to Jasper is one of the most spectacular highways in the entire world. And honestly, we still haven’t seen anything that tops it.

In Jasper, we celebrated Canada Day. On 1 July, Canada turned 150, and to mark the occasion, the local park was serving pancakes plus unlimited coffee and juice — all for a two-dollar entry fee. Two dollars is practically pocket change for Canadians.

As we left the mountains on the road that would connect us to the Alaska Highway, we climbed one last hill. And right as we said our goodbyes to the Canadian Rockies, the weather turned into absolute hell.

On our first day out, we were pelted by enormous hailstones — like machine-gun fire raining down on us. We swerved and tried to outrun them, but they kept catching up. Eventually we pulled over at a campsite and tried to find shelter, but it was hopeless. So we just sat there praying for it to stop. After a gruelling twenty minutes, the onslaught finally eased off and we pushed on, accompanied by a dark, relentless downpour.

On the second day, we passed a sign announcing we’d entered the famous and supposedly gorgeous Alaska Highway. All we could see was rain. Nine hundred kilometres of rain.

We woke up in the rain in a Walmart car park in the city of Whitehorse, Yukon — with no idea that the day ahead was going to be a rough one. We’d hoped to cover at least 700 km, but it quickly became clear that wasn’t going to happen.

We grabbed our morning coffee, blissfully unaware that we’d soon be screaming profanities out the car window, and headed to the bank. Our one-year fee-free CIBC account was expiring, and we needed to switch to a Smart account to avoid being charged for every transaction. A smiling banker welcomed us, saying it would take about 10 minutes and everything would be sorted. Two and a half hours later, we walked out having been told they’d probably freeze our account — because we no longer had work visas, just tourist ones. On top of that, our account wouldn’t let us withdraw more than 800 Canadian dollars (about €550).

So there we were, hurtling towards Alaska with roughly 1,500 Canadian dollars (about €1,000) in cash — and that was it. If they froze the account, we’d be properly screwed. We left Whitehorse in the foulest of moods, yelling out the window on the highway: “AND WHO DOES THAT HELP?!” After a string of rather more colourful expletives (apologies to anyone who may have overheard us), we felt slightly better.

And so, three days into our road trip to Alaska and it’s still raining. We know there are mountains somewhere around us, but we can’t see a thing. Sometimes the weather plays along, sometimes it doesn’t. That’s the reality of travelling.

Tips and Tricks for Your Vacation

Don’t Overpay for Flights

Search for flights on Kayak. It’s our favorite search engine because it scans the websites of all airlines and always finds the cheapest connection.

Book Your Accommodation Smartly

The best experiences we’ve had when looking for accommodation (from Alaska to Morocco) are with Booking.com, where hotels, apartments, and entire houses are usually the cheapest and most widely available.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance

Good travel insurance will protect you against illness, accidents, theft, or flight cancellations. We’ve had a few hospital visits abroad, so we know how important it is to have proper insurance arranged.

Where we insure ourselves: SafetyWing (best for everyone) and TrueTraveller (for extra-long trips).

Why don’t we recommend any Czech insurance company? Because they have too many restrictions. They set limits on the number of days abroad, travel insurance via a credit card often requires you to pay medical expenses only with that card, and they frequently limit the number of returns to the Czech Republic.

Find the Best Experiences

Get Your Guide is a huge online marketplace where you can book guided walks, trips, skip-the-line tickets, tours, and much more. We always find some extra fun there!