America's Northernmost City Is An Overlooked Destination Bursting With Breathtaking Views

When it comes to coastal vacations, many people would choose to spend their time in a tropical location with white sand beaches and balmy ocean air. However, if you prefer untamed wilderness and don't mind a little cold, Alaska may have just the destination for you.

While some will find an Alaskan cruise or one of Alaska's stunning island destinations, there's a small town at the northernmost tip that you should be aware of. Utqiaġvik is nestled along the shores of the Arctic Ocean — as far north as you can go in the United States.

As you can imagine, this town is practically cut off from the rest of the world. Once you've traveled there, you'll likely gain a new perspective on what it means to "get away from it all." But what Utqiaġvik lacks in infrastructure and crowds, it more than makes up for with breathtaking scenery you can't find anywhere else.

If you were to go to Utqiaġvik before 2016, you would have been traveling to a city called Barrow. However, thanks to a referendum, the locals in the area voted to restore the name to the original Inupiaq to reflect its native heritage. Given that archeological expeditions have found evidence of native tribes settling the area of Utqiaġvik as early as A.D. 500, it makes sense to use such a historically and culturally significant name. Many descendants of Inupiaq tribe members still live in the city, helping its population swell to almost 5,000 residents.

As far as the U.S. is concerned, the town of Barrow was incorporated in 1959, although it was settled by pioneers and American colonists long before. The Presbyterian Church, for example, was founded on Easter Sunday in 1899. Much of the town's development happened during the 1940s and 1950s when the U.S. government installed military assets, such as the Distant Early Warning (DEW) system and the Naval Arctic Research Lab (NARL), the latter which is still in use today.

The only way to get to Utqiaġvik is by plane. Alaska Airlines runs flights from Fairbanks and Anchorage, and then, from those places, visitors can fly to the Wiley Post-Will Rogers Memorial Airport. Being so far north means the area is shrouded in 24-hour darkness from November 18th to January 23rd. Tourism to Utqiaġvik, like the best time to go on an Alaskan cruise, is mostly during the summer, which is between May and August, when the sun never sets.

But what is there to do around Utqiaġvik? Well, not much beyond soaking up the sunlight and taking in the views. Because the community sits along the ocean, you can spend hours strolling the beach. If you go during the winter, you'll get an unencumbered view of the northern lights. Time moves differently during the polar summer and polar winter, so it's important to plan accordingly.

Beyond watching the horizon, you can visit the Birnirk National Historic Landmark, which offers a glimpse into what native life was like in the area over 1,500 years ago. Unsurprisingly, many activities, like hunting and fishing, are still practiced today. Much of the town relies on subsistence hunting, and fishing expeditions will search for bowhead and baleen whales for meat and bones. You can capture this spirit under the whalebone arch across the street from the Top of the World Hotel.