I'd choose Alaska in a flash given the opportunity, but Andrew, if my in-laws' experience is anything like typical, one important aspect of a trip there is more similar to a trip to Croatia than meets the eye. The similarity is that getting off the beaten path ain't easy and is logistically taxing, albeit for different reasons than in Croatia, while what's "on the beaten path" there will be shared with a fair number of people. Because the beaten path leads to such fabulous and exotic places (e.g. Denali), might as well follow it, at least the first time you're there. But don't expect the get-away-from-it-all part of the experience to be as novel as you might think, unless you're willing to go to considerable effort to make it so (in which case you really can "get away from it all" like almost nowhere else in the world).
Bill-on-the-Hill
Not as different as you might think...
I'd choose Alaska in a flash given the opportunity, but Andrew, if my in-laws' experience is anything like typical, one important aspect of a trip there is more similar to a trip to Croatia than meets the eye. The similarity is that getting off the beaten path ain't easy and is logistically taxing, albeit for different reasons than in Croatia, while what's "on the beaten path" there will be shared with a fair number of people. Because the beaten path leads to such fabulous and exotic places (e.g. Denali), might as well follow it, at least the first time you're there. But don't expect the get-away-from-it-all part of the experience to be as novel as you might think, unless you're willing to go to considerable effort to make it so (in which case you really can "get away from it all" like almost nowhere else in the world).
-- B-o-t-H