I wanted to explore the Pacific Northwest this fall so we checked out Southeast Alaska, Seattle, and Victoria, Canada. We had a great time and although it drizzled on us the sights were quite amazing. The Alaskan mountains tower majestically over the coastline, and they were shrouded in a misty fog for most of our journey. We saw some grizzly bears, I learned that the brown bears of Alaska are a bit larger than the regular North American brown bear due to a diet that is rich in salmon.
We also saw sea otters swimming near the coastline hanging out around the buoys, the moms hang out with the pups and the males are separate. Apparently, the females bully them away from them. While otter mothers wait for the invention of otter diapers and otter formula, the services of the fathers are useless and their company is unwanted apparently.
We toured a few glaciers and I was not expecting to see the dramatic ice calving that you see on National Geographic documentaries. But we totally did, we took a little boat right up to the Hubbard Glacier and the glacier was "calving" (technical term for a piece of the glacier breaking off into the ocean). This glacier was huge and it grows annually unlike most of the Artic glaciers that decrease in size annually.
In Seattle, we enjoyed some local pizza and toured the local marina, and rode up the Space Needle. The view up there was great but I'd definitely recommend pre-ordering your tickets it saved us a good amount of time.
Victoria is just across the Puget Sound from Seattle and it is a quieter town. It had a nice vibe and a lot of classical architecture and was much cleaner than Seattle. We visited an ice cream shop in which they sell enormous soft-served cones dipped in chocolate that hardens. The shop had like 20 flavors of chocolate to dip into, I had hazelnut chocolate dipped cone and that thing was delicious...but very rich.
We had a great trip and we really enjoyed it. I do not think this is a trip I'd do again until I'm older but for lovers of nature I would highly recommend Alaska.