Peaks & Parks

By: Samie

Travel Dates: July 13th-25th, 2025

Day 11

(Fairbanks, Flying Home)

On July 24th, 2025, we woke up on our final morning in Alaska. The only scheduled thing on the agenda was our flight out, and we wouldn’t be getting picked up for the airport until 7:00 pm. This meant that we had an entire open day with nothing to fill it.

We had a set time that we needed to have our luggage set out by so that it could get picked up and loaded onto the bus that would be taking us to the airport. Otherwise our schedule was completely empty. Because nothing else was booked through our travel agency, anything we wanted to do or anywhere we wanted to go, we would have to walk, find our transportation, and/or pay for ourselves. Plus, we were responsible for our carry-ons and personal items.

Since checkout wasn’t until 11:00, we spent as much time relaxing in our hotel rooms and watching TV or relaxing as we could. Then we grabbed the luggage that didn’t get picked up and headed down to meet up in the hotel lobby to make a plan.

There really wasn’t a lot we could or wanted to do. However, there was a nice little breakfast and coffee shack called Sunrise Bagel and Espresso within walking distance of our hotel. There wasn’t a place to store our items, so we had to lug them along with us.

The 8 minute walk brought us to the our destination, and we discovered it was a drive through only restaurant. We didn’t have any other choice. We had already walked over here. We hopped in line behind the vehicles…as people.

We felt very silly as we waited in the car line, but it wasn’t so busy that we felt bad or like we were inconveniencing anyone, so we continued to stand in line. Hopefully we brought a smile or some entertainment to the couple of cars in line!

It was our turn up to order, and everything looked great, so deciding what we wanted was a tough choice. I had already gotten a coffee at the hotel, so I just wanted something to eat. So for food, I got a bagel with cream cheese, and Luke got a breakfast burrito. Luke also got a refresher kind of drink.

We found a nice little spot to sit and sip for a little while. It was already shaping up to be a beautiful day, so it was nice to just sit outside for a little while. After finishing up, we made our back to the hotel.

We had seen a nice little lounge in our hotel, and after we came back from our little brunch journey, it was completely empty, so we chose our designated spots and posted up.

Without going into great detail, I was dealing with a little something that happens to most women once a month. I was facing all the pain and discomfort that comes with day one, so all I wanted to do was sleep and eat chocolate. Fortunately, it was the perfect day to accomplish these things because we had 7 hours of nothing before our ride to the airport was going to arrive.

There were some nice big, comfy couches which made for a great little nap spot for me (as you can see below). They also had a TV, so between napping or scrolling, we could pass the time with some entertainment.

While 7 hours was a long time to do nothing, and there were definitely times that it seemed to be passing slowly, 7:00 rolled around before we knew it, and we were being transported to the Fairbanks airport, where we would have to get ready to say our final goodbye to Alaska.

We arrived at the airport at around 7:30. We had plenty of time to get through security and find our gate, as well as take some final pictures in Alaska.

We were easily seated and ready by 8:30, and our actual flight wasn’t going to depart until 10:15 pm. We had another good chunk of time to fill. There was a North Pole Coffee in the airport, so Luke and I walked over because I was thirsty. I got a mango smoothie, and it hit the spot!

While waiting, the clouds lifted, and for pretty much the first time the entire trip, the sky was clear enough to see distant mountains. We snapped some pictures of them in the distance, with some hope that one of them was Mount Denali!

Finally, it was time to board and depart the lovely Frontier State of Alaska. It was an overnight flight, and we wouldn’t be arriving in Minneapolis until 6:22 am on the 25th.

I can’t say I remember much of the flight as I was dozing off and on and trying to deal with the pain and discomfort that my body was forcing on me for the month.

We touched down back in the lower 48 and had just a small window of time to fill until our final flight to Fargo at 9:05 am. I’d had some issues during the flight and needed to change, so Luke and I rolled our suitcases (we had only carry-ons if you remember from our first post) over to a nearby bathroom so that I could grab what I needed from my suitcase and change in the bathroom.

I was also feeling very hot and took off my sweatshirt, but because it was a new hoodie that I had just gotten on the trip, it left little fuzzies on the black shirt I had underneath. I didn’t have any other short sleeved shirts because it wasn’t a packing essential for Alaska, so we also swung through a store and purchased an inexpensive and oversize Minnesota T-shirt for me.

Then we swung through Dunkin for some breakfast as well as Starbucks for a nice, large iced coffee. We made our way back to our gate to enjoy our treats and waited for our last flight that would be taking us home.

It was an absolutely amazing trip that we had enjoyed every second of. Alaska is a beautiful state, and we feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to experience it with people we love so much. It is definitely a trip we will remember for the rest of our lives!

To close up our Alaskan Adventure, I will share the video compilation we had created to summarize the different stops and sights of our trip. We hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about our amazing trip to Alaska and would love to hear from any of you that have been and want to share some of your experiences! Send us an email through our website, and we would love to feature some responses in a future post! Until next time!