Anchorage Car Rental links and information. Anchorage is a big city in Alaska, home to more than 250,000 people nearly half the states population. Anchorage Car Rental is recommended to get around.

Anchorage Introduction - Anchorage Car Rental

Anchorage is big-city Alaska, home to more than a quarter-million people -- nearly half the state's population. That makes Anchorage an anomaly in a state where the featured attraction is wilderness.

Alaska's residents joke that visitors can't really claim to have seen the state until they leave Anchorage. The city has shopping malls, national discount stores, movie theaters, fast-food restaurants, high-rise hotels and a busy international airport.

But, as with most places in Alaska, the wilderness is never far away. The snowy Chugach Mountains rise just behind the city, and some of the state's premier natural attractions are within a day's travel: Denali National Park, the Kenai Peninsula, Katmai National Park and Portage Glacier.

These sights -- and Anchorage's status as the state's primary transportation hub -- are the reasons that nearly all travelers to Alaska spend at least some time there.

If you visit in summer, you'll have extra time to see the sights -- there are 17-21 hours of daylight then.

Anchorage Climate - Anchorage Car Rental

Anchorage has a temperate maritime climate, with cool summers and cold winters. The average annual temperature is a chilly 36 F/2 C.

The area gets only around 15 in/40 cm of rain annually, but expect cloudy weather -- more than 50% of the time -- in summer.

The city receives an average of 69 in/175 cm of snow annually, nearly all of it falling October-April.

June-August high temperatures are commonly in the 60s F/high teens C and can reach into the upper 70s F/mid-20s C on warm days.

Winter temperatures are cold (but much milder than in Fairbanks and other parts of interior Alaska), with typical January nights around 6 F/-14 C.

Anchorage never gets completely dark in the middle of summer, and the summer solstice (20 or 21 June) is a time for celebration, with 19 hours and 20 minutes of sunshine. The reverse occurs in winter, and by the winter solstice in late December the city sees only about five hours of light.

Because of the long days and mild conditions, summer is when the vast majority of travelers go to Alaska. But winter also attracts its share of visitors, including hardy souls who come to take in the spectacular northern lights or to enjoy a dog-sledding adventure.

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Anchorage Transportation - Anchorage Car Rental

Downtown Anchorage is readily accessible on foot, and the city is laid out on a relatively level floodplain. Once you get away from downtown, the city sprawls to the east and south in a hodgepodge of neighborhoods and shopping malls.

There is well-posted, if infrequent, bus service to the suburbs. The downtown trolley based out of the Fourth Avenue Theater offers downtown and midtown area transportation with scheduled stops and services.

If you want to explore outside of Anchorage, or to reach such places as Chugach (pronounced CHEW-gatch) State Park and sights south of town along Turnagain Arm, you'll probably want to rent a car.

Traffic is generally not heavy, though the city does experience a rush hour (of sorts) on weekdays. Taxis are expensive, so they aren't practical for sightseeing.