6 Best Sights in Seward, The Kenai Peninsula and Southcentral Alaska

A research center as well as a fascinating aquarium and natural history museum, Alaska SeaLife rehabilitates injured marine wildlife and provides educational experiences for the general public. The facility includes massive cold-water tanks and outdoor viewing decks as well as interactive displays of cold-water fish, seabirds, and marine mammals, including harbor seals, puffins, King crabs, and a 2,000-pound sea lion. The center was partially funded with reparations money from the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Films, hands-on activities (including touch tanks), a particularly good gift shop, an observation deck overlooking the bay, and private small group tours where you can interact with different animals complete the offerings. Ticket prices vary a bit depending on the day; you can often save a few bucks by booking online ahead.

The first mile of the historic original trail—at first called the Seward-to-Nome Mail Trail—runs along the beach and makes for a nice, easy stroll.

If you drive south from the Alaska SeaLife Center, after about 10 minutes you'll reach Lowell Point, a wooded stretch of land along the bay with access to beach walking, hiking, and kayaking. This is a great day-trip destination, and camping is also an option.

For a different view of the town along a less-traveled road, drive out Nash Road, around Resurrection Bay, and look down at Seward, nestled at the base of the surrounding mountains like a young bird in its nest.

Seward's museum, community center, and library is a one-stop attraction, with the museum just downstairs from the library. The museum displays art by prominent Alaskan artists as well as relics that weave together the stories of the gold rush, Russian settlements, Alaska Native history, and the upheaval created by the 1964 earthquake. Two movies---one illustrating the disaster, the other about the Iditarod Trail---are played back-to-back daily.

A mass of ice that caps the Kenai Mountains, the Harding Icefield covers more than 1,100 square miles, and oozes more than 40 glaciers from its edges and down the mountainsides; Exit Glacier is the most accessible part of the ice field. Just outside Seward, if you hike a mile up the paved trail that starts at the parking lot, you'll find yourself at the terminal moraine of Exit Glacier. Look for the marked turnoff at Mile 3.7 as you enter town, or you can take the hourly shuttle from downtown ($15 round-trip). There's a small walk-in campground here, a ranger station, and access to the glacier. The hike to the ice field from the parking lot is a 9-mile round-trip that gains 3,000 feet in elevation, so it's not for the timid or out of shape. But if you're feeling up to the task, the hike and views are breathtaking. Local wildlife includes mountain goats and bears both black and brown, so keep a sharp eye out for them. Due to recent ice fall at the toe of the glacier, the entire toe is currently off-limits.