Saturday, January 11, 2025:

I was a bit nervous for this trip because despite it being very short, it would also be the first time I traveled with my boyfriend’s family. We were traveling to Alaska to try and see the Northern Lights. His sister originally had the booking, but she could not make it due to work requirements, and they asked if I wanted to come. I packed the day before in a small carry-on that was stuffed with plenty of layers and warm winter clothes since it is Alaska in winter, and then my flight from SFO to Seattle left around 11. My layover was around 2 hours, and my boyfriend met me at my arrival gate before taking me to where his family was. I grabbed some pasta and a mango smoothie for lunch and chatted with them for a bit. Our flight from Seattle to Fairbanks with Alaska Airlines left around 3:15 PM, and was chill. I took a nap and read for a bit. I have been to Alaska once before, on a school trip a few years ago, but this was going to be a different experience. At Fairbanks, we were picked up by a car from the resort we were staying at: Borealis Basecamp. In the airport, I had pulled on a pair of thermals under my sweater to ensure that I would be warm, and we all pulled on our winter coats. Their camp was about an hours drive from Fairbanks to get a better view of the Northern Lights, with less pollution and higher elevation. While Fairbanks is around 550 feet above sea level, the camp was closer to 1500 feet above. Once there we had dinner at the pub on site, and they were able to accommodate my allergies quite well. My boyfriend’s mom had called ahead to ensure that they would be able to meet my requirements, to my joy. I had a delicious vegan zucchini soup and roasted balsamic brussel sprouts for dinner, while we all chatted. We were pretty tired though, and after our late dinner around 8:30, we headed back to our rooms to shower and go to bed. At Borealis, you stay in igloos that are all set up apart from each other, with glass panels on the ceiling to provide a good view of the Northern Lights if visible, and if they did show up, the camp staff would ring an alarm to wake us up no matter the time so we could see the aurora borealis. We controlled the warmth of the room with a panel, and our rooms each had a king bed. It was also the first time my boyfriend and I have stayed in a hotel room together with no one else, which was pretty cool. The bathroom was stocked with hand cream and soaps from L’occitane Providence as well, which I thought was super fancy.

Sunday, January 12, 2025:

In the winter, the sunrise and sunset in Alaska, especially somewhere as North as Fairbanks, is crazy. Today, the sun rose at 10:37 AM and set around 3:30 PM. There were literally only five hours of sunlight, and the sun hovered over the horizon in a perpetual sunset. We grabbed breakfast at 9 while it was still dark outside; my boyfriend had waffles, and I had them make me an omelette with new eggs, since their usual batter had dairy in it. After a relaxed breakfast I pulled on snow pants and we headed to the activities center for our first activity of the day: snowmobiling. I have only been on a snowmobile once before, and I was 10 and had gotten lost at a ski resort during my first year of recreational ski team. This time I would be driving it, which was super cool. It honestly wasn’t that hard to control or steer, and the fastest we went was 20 mph, though I wanted to go faster. I suppose for a 1 hour session for beginners that was safest and smartest. It was a lot of fun; we went around to a fire cliff, where controlled burns happen, and to see the Great Alaskan Pipeline above ground. It is a large oil pipeline that carries oil through Alaska to closer to the border, so that it can then be shipped through Canada to the US. It was a super cool experience overall, and probably my favorite part of the entire trip. After snowmobiling, we grabbed lunch at the restaurant Latitude 65 around noon. We had some nice french press coffee, and I had some good vegan tacos that filled me up. We ate quickly in order to make our dog sledding activity at 1. We spent around 15 minutes with the dogs just petting them and getting to know them—they were adorable. There were sixteen of them, eight per dog musher, and all were privately owned. The mushers did it for a living, including participating in actual dog races that lasted multiple days. All of them were Alaskan huskys, and they were adorable. They all also looked a bit different to each other because there were bred for athletics, not for looks. Only a couple of them had a trademark husky blue eyes, since that is a recessive gene. They were super affectionate and kept running in circles and burying themselves in the snow to cool down in the warm weather. After some time they were hooked up to the sleds and took off. My boyfriend and I took one sled, taking turns for who was standing and who was sitting. Our lead dog was named Harry, after Harry Potter, which I found adorable. Apparently our musher names her dogs (she has 35) after different characters, especially from Iron Man comics. I really enjoyed the dog sledding experience, though due to the warm weather and melting snow, the dogs were not able to go as fast as they normally would. Apparently a large dog mushing race was happening at the same time, and our mushers were wondering about how they were faring. It is a small community, so they all knew each other. We finished around 2 and had time to spare from there until our dinner reservation at 5:30 at Latitude 65. We were all pretty tired and just ended up going back to our igloos to rest and nap, before bundling back up for dinner, albeit without the ski pants. The restaurant was really nice, but crazy expensive. My risotto dish was the cheapest and it was $35. All the meat dishes were expensive, especially the crab, which was market price, but we knew that it would be expensive. The food was worth it in my opinion: delicious. I loved all the mushrooms and the slight flavor of white wine in my risotto, and we had a nice time dining and chatting with each other. After dinner we took some photos of the sky, where the lights were incredibly faint, and then headed back to the igloos rooms to shower, back before tomorrow’s departure, and watch the sky for the aurora borealis.

Monday, January 13, 2025:

We unfortunately did not catch the Aurora last night either; we did our best, but this was booked a year in advance and there was no way of knowing that the warm weather combined with the full moon would make it incredibly overcast and hard to see what we had came to see. Nevertheless, it was an amazing trip. We woke at 3:30 so we could take the 4 AM shuttle to Fairbanks an hour away for our 7 AM flight. Shuttles only leave the Borealis Basecamp every two hours on the even mark, so it was this or nothing else. I was exhausted. I had set my clothes out the night before after showering and just pulled them on in a haze before zipping my suitcase shut, doing a last check of the room, and then leaving my suitcase at the front door for the staff to pick up and take to the shuttle. From there, my boyfriend and I made our way to the lobby area, where I blearily greeted his parents before leaning on his chest and literally falling asleep standing up. I am not a morning person at all. We made it into the shuttle in a bit, and I had some coffee that his mom had gotten for me. It woke me up a bit but not much, since coffee often puts me to sleep if I’m not careful. Nevertheless, I made it through the car ride and security and to our gate, where I promptly curled into a ball on the benches and fell asleep using my boyfriend’s leg as a pillow. I woke up to board the plane, where had an empty middle seat, and then fell back asleep curled up. A huge benefit of being short is that planes can be surprisingly comfortable for me if I adjust a bit. The four hour ride went by, and I woke up three hours in far more refreshed and let my boyfriend rest on me for a while while I scrolled on my phone. We all got off in Seattle, where his mom jokingly asked if I was awake now. After grabbing a seat in the Seattle airport food court, I grabbed a nice salad burrito for breakfast/lunch and ate. I only had an hour’s layover which was nice; my boyfriend’s local airport is much smaller than SFO and their layover was almost three hours. I was literally going to be home by the time they boarded. After some time, it was over. I said goodbye to his parents, and my boyfriend walked me to my gate, where I boarded my flight and headed home. It was an amazing weekend trip, with plenty of new experiences and good times had.