Whittier

Whittier is a turnaround port for Princess, Holland America, and a few other lines running one-way Gulf of Alaska cruises, reached from Anchorage via the 2.5-mile Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel — a one-lane shared rail/road tunnel that is the longest of its kind in North America. The town itself is tiny: most of its 200 full-time residents live in a single Cold War-era high-rise called Begich Towers, and the cruise experience is almost entirely about transfer to or from the ship. Passengers typically connect directly to motorcoach or rail service for Anchorage, Denali, and Talkeetna. Day-trippers from docked ships can take glacier-viewing boat tours into Prince William Sound's 26 tidewater glaciers in the Kenai Fjords and Chugach National Forest.