Best kayaking day trip from Homer, Alaska

OMER, Alaska — It’s only a four hour drive on Seward Highway, one of the most beautiful drives in the world, from Anchorage to the bottom of Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula, where the small fishing village of Homer sits. Here, on the Homer Spit, a 4.5-mile land spit extending into Kachemak Bay, restaurants like the Mexican Cosmic Kitchen and Finn’s Woodfired Pizza, along with tour companies advertising fishing and kayaking trips, relentlessly beckon tourists. Some locals will tell you that Homer has been ruined by overdevelopment and tourism, but Homer still manages to feel small, even if most of the people milling around are only visiting for the day.

The fishing charter companies here insist that Homer is the “Halibut capital of the world.” I have no idea what this means (is this the home of the Halibut Congress?) or whether it is even true, but visitors to Alaska looking for Halibut fishing charters have no trouble finding outfits to take them fishing for a day or more here.

But, last year, when my friend Mitch and I drive to Homer, we’re looking for kayaks and an escape from work instead of strange-looking flat fish. We take some time to explore the sand spit and then pick an outfitter to take us for a half-day kayak trip to nearby Yukon Island, about seven miles from the end of the spit. We spend the afternoon on the water, admiring the huge, snow-capped mountains of Kachemak Bay State Park and spotting bald eagles in nests upon towering spruce trees on Yukon Island. After having spent the summer visiting so many amazing Alaskan destinations, I marvel that the state’s wilderness seems nearly limitless. I look around and realize that we could spend weeks exploring just Homer and Kachemak Bay, if only our time in Alaska were limitless too.

For more Alaska adventures, read about a hike to Exit Glacier in Alaska’s Kenai Fjords National Park, a bicycle trip on the Coastal Trail and down the Turnagain Arm, an ATV ride 200 miles above the Arctic Circle near the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, a train trip to Spencer Glacier, and my packrafting trip to Denali’s Sanctuary River. If that’s not enough, you can also check out an Independence Day kayaking trip near California’s Catalina Island.

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