Alaska Equipment

Camera gear, binoculars, phones, IPods and games - this was huge! Joe spent much of the previous year researching and selecting cameras and binoculars for the trip. Now we needed to buy it, at the best price, and try it out before we left. The cameras (a new digital extravaganza, an old digital backup and a Fuji disposable waterproof camera for the raft trip) should allow us to capture enough of Alaska to bore our friends for years to come! Gabi equipped us with the latest in cellphone technology and JJ gathered a small but capable IPod and videogame arsenal.
We planned our battery and a/c power needs and made sure we knew where the power would be coming from and how we were going to tap into it. We assumed we could always use normal electrical (110v a/c) outlets, though JJ needed a USB-to-A/C adapter for some of his games. We didn't take 'cigarette lighter' chargers because we figured we would either be in hotels or the motorhome, which had an a/c inverter with normal outlets.
Lithium ion camera batteries were supposed to last the longest and, since we had often run out of battery life, we wanted the longest battery life and more than one battery for those long Alaskan days and oh, so many opportunities for fabulous, once in a lifetime shots.

We took along a throwaway waterproof camera for the river rafting trip and our first digital camera (Kodak Easyshare Z740) as a backup - just in case! We didn't want to be stuck on a bus or boat trip and have our batteries run out or fill up our memory cards.

You also need compact (and rugged) equipment when you're bouncing around in a school bus all day. More and more you can get surprisingly good results in very small packages. We really appreciated the little Pentax reverse-porroprism binoculars which quickly 'acquired' our distant targets. Our new Sony Cybershot pocket camera was wonderful and Joe didn't even use many of the features. Joe is not an accomplished photographer and he still got some great shots.

Cameras - Joe researched compact digital cameras on the web and, after months, decided on the Sony CyberShot DSC T100 digital camera which takes still shots and videos. He found a New York City camera shop (Adorama) to have the price and color (black) he wanted and we got it in a couple of days. It worked great and had everything we wanted, including a battery charger that plugged right into the wall... but no camera case. We then purchased another lithium-ion battery and it came with a nice leather camera case (go figure!). The two batteries were charged each night and, together, got us through the longest days. The new camera had 31mb memory, which we saved for emergency, and we picked up a 2.0 GB Memory Stick PRO Duo, which we assumed would carry just about all our shots. We needed another 1 GB supplemental stick (from WalMart) when we got back from Denali. We brought back a whole bunch of pictures! Our backup camera was a 2-year old Kodak EasyShare Z740 digital camera, which is bulkier but has a 10x zoom and which we were familiar with. The last piece of camera equipment was a medium Case Logic camera case, picked up at Fry's, to hold the new camera and binoculars in their cases.

Binoculars - We found a few birdwatching websites for binocular recommendations and selected Pentax 8x25 UCF X II reverse porroprism compact binoculars which were great. We took two - made sure we had enough for everyone because we used them all of the time!

Cell phones - check with your carrier and find out if you will have coverage where you and going and if it's included in your plan. This is critical if you are traveling with kids because they spend a lot of time texting and using IM! Ours worked and was included at no additional charge.

Handheld electronic games and IPODS were a welcome diversion while traveling but they needed constant recharging. We found that an inverter was required to convert 12V to 120 household current to charge all of our stuff including the camera batteries in the motor home. We rented one from our motor home provider for about $1.50 per day. Make sure it is in working condition before you leave Anchorage or take your own…because this will surely make or break your trip.
Note - many hand held electronic devices need their own adapter to connect to the inverter especially those that normally connect to your computer for recharging.

Stick a couple of headphones into your carry on baggage so that you can utilize their music and enjoy the movie without charge!