Two Days in Ketchikan: A Plan for Overnight Visitors

Day one stays on Revillagigedo Island and stays cheap. Start at the Southeast Alaska Discovery Center at 50 Main Street. Entry is $5 per person in season, children 15 and under enter free with an adult, and the season pass at $15 covers the pass-holder plus two others. Official USFS pages disagree on the summer opening time, one saying 9:00am and another 8:00am, so verify before you go.

Walk to Creek Street next. The boardwalk is free and always open. It was Ketchikan's red-light district from a 1903 city ordinance until the last houses closed in 1954. Dolly's House Museum charges admission, reported at about $10 by the Visitors Bureau listing, though no official venue source confirms the price or hours. At the northeast end of the boardwalk, climb the Married Man's Trail stairway up Ketchikan Creek. No official page publishes its length, but secondary sources describe roughly 0.20 miles of stairs and boardwalk.

If salmon are running, the bridges over the creek are the viewing points. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game gives May through September as the window, peaking in July and August, with Chinook and coho the named species.

After lunch, ride the borough bus or walk to the Totem Heritage Center at 601 Deermount Street. Hours are 8:00am to 5:00pm daily from May through September. It holds 33 original 19th-century poles recovered from abandoned village sites. Admission is not published on the official city page, so check on arrival.

Finish with the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show at 420 Spruce Mill Way, one hour long, with one to six shows daily and times that vary. The official site does not print prices, and resale sites report adult tickets around $43 to $45. In the evening, pick a spot from the where to eat page.

Ketchikan is an island town with no connection to the continental highway network, so day two means water or air. The marquee option is a floatplane into Misty Fjords National Monument, reachable only by boat or floatplane via Behm Canal. The monument covers 2,142,243 acres and the Forest Service charges no entrance fee, so the trip cost is entirely the flight. The Misty Fjords floatplane tour runs 2 hours, carries a maximum of 6 participants, and includes a van transfer and a 6-passenger floatplane.

If bears are the priority instead, Neets Bay is road-inaccessible, roughly 30 to 35 air miles out on Behm Canal. The hatchery there is run by SSRAA, which publishes no public access permit, so access is only through booked flightseeing or boat tours. Secondary sources describe seasonal charter access in late summer.

A boat day is the alternative. The Bering Sea Crab Fishermen's Tour runs 3 hours on a working crab boat, and the lighthouse, totems and eagles cruise runs 2.5 to 3 hours. Both leave from the downtown waterfront.

Keep day two flexible for weather. The floatplane operators fly under FAA Part 135 certificates, and floatplanes are the most weather-sensitive activity on this page. Put the flight first in your trip, not last, so a weather cancellation leaves a spare day to rebook.

Two transit facts do most of the work on this itinerary.

First, Ketchikan Gateway Borough Transit runs a Free Downtown Shuttle Zone, a Bus+ service from Bryant Street to the Coast Guard Base. It runs daily through the summer season and on cruise-ship days into late October. No fare is charged inside the zone. Day one of this itinerary sits almost entirely inside it.

Second, the fixed-route bus beyond downtown costs $2 per adult ride, ages 19 to 59. Youth 18 and under and seniors 60 and over pay $1, ADA cardholders ride free, and a regular day pass is $5. Cash in exact change or the Token Transit app both work.

Useful fixed-route destinations include Saxman to the south and the parks north of town, though Totem Bight at milepost 10 is a long ride. The airport ferry is separate: it leaves the Ketchikan side on the quarter hours from 6:15am to 9:30pm and costs $6 one-way for adults or $7 for a standard vehicle.

No official municipal page lists taxi companies or confirms rideshare coverage in Ketchikan, so do not count on an app working. If you need a guaranteed ride, arrange it in advance through your lodging.

The bus day is cheap, the flight day is not, and together they balance out.

| Item | Published figure | Source status | | --- | --- | --- | | Downtown shuttle zone | Free | Official | | Borough bus, adult single ride | $2 ($2) | Official | | Borough bus day pass | $5 ($5) | Official | | Discovery Center, in season | $5 ($5) per person | Official | | Totem Bight day-use fee | $5 ($5) per person | Official | | Creek Street boardwalk | Free | Official context | | Totem Heritage Center admission | Not stated on the official page | Negative finding | | Saxman self-guided admission | Not confirmed on any official page | Negative finding | | Lumberjack Show ticket | Not printed by the official site, about $43-45 adult per resale sites | Reputable secondary | | Misty Fjords floatplane tour | $389 | Tour listing | | Potlatch Totem Park entry | Fee confirmed to exist, amount never published | Negative finding |

Two things are worth flagging. Dolly's House Museum has no official venue website, so its roughly $10 admission rests on the Visitors Bureau listing alone. And no official source states a tipping norm for guides or restaurants in Ketchikan, so treat any percentage you read elsewhere as custom, not rule.

Add the road north. Totem Bight State Historical Park at 9883 N Tongass Highway, milepost 10, opens 7:00am to 6:00pm year-round with a $5 per person day-use fee and free parking. Its poles were repaired or rebuilt starting in 1938 under a US Forest Service and Civilian Conservation Corps program that hired retired Tlingit and Haida carvers, and the 8.5-acre historic core joined the National Register in 1970.

Next door at 9809 Totem Bight Road sits Potlatch Totem Park, a family-run private park with a 42-foot Raven pole and an active carving center. Its official site confirms an entry fee exists but never states the amount, and it publishes no hours.

Hikers can swap the parks for Deer Mountain. The trail gains about 2,000 feet in the first two miles, tops out at 3,350 feet per the Forest Service, and runs 10.7 miles in total to Upper Silvis Lake. There are no restrooms or potable water at the trailhead. A free 16 by 16 foot A-frame shelter at 2,900 feet sleeps up to 8.

Rain backup: the Tongass Historical Museum at 629 Dock Street, or the underwater salmon camera at the Discovery Center, free from October through April. For longer detours, see the day trips page.

The part that makes two days work at all is the bed. Downtown puts you in the town after the ships have gone, which is the reason to stay in the first place, and the three areas are compared here with what each costs you in transport.