Vancouver to the Yukon via the Alaska Highway - CanaDream

Twenty-three nights and 6,600 kilometres in a loop from Vancouver in a motorhome, up to the Yukon and Alaska and back down the Alaska Highway.

Whistler, Quesnel and Smithers come first, then Dease Lake on the Stewart Cassiar Highway, a remote route north through British Columbia with long gaps between services, and Whitehorse, the Yukon capital on the Yukon River.

Carmacks and Dawson City follow, the second the centre of the Klondike gold rush, where the streets are still unpaved and the claims are still worked. Tok crosses into Alaska, then Burwash Landing and Haines Junction beside Kluane, which holds the largest non-polar icefield in the world. Haines and Skagway come next on the Alaska panhandle, the second the start of the Chilkoot Trail that the stampeders walked. Carcross, Watson Lake, Fort Nelson and Dawson Creek carry the route back down the Alaska Highway, which begins at Mile Zero in the last of them.

The motorhome and the day-by-day plan come from CanaDream, and the hire is priced live per vehicle rather than per person; campsites, fuel, ferries, park fees and activities are all extra, with insurance options priced at booking. Twenty-four days for 6,600 kilometres is a committed schedule, with stay days at Whitehorse, Dawson City, Haines Junction, Haines and Skagway doing the work of making it a holiday. The season is short, roughly June to early September. Gravel sections are normal on the northern highways, which is worth checking against the hire terms, and a spare tyre and a chipped windscreen are both ordinary outcomes up here. Crossing into Alaska needs the cross-border cover confirmed at booking.