Camping Near Hot Springs in Alaska: Soak-and-Sleep Picks

Hot springs in Alaska are not like the cute drive-up pools you find in Colorado. Half of them require a float plane, a boat, or a 10-mile slog through wet tundra. The other half are at the end of a frost-heaved gravel road that will rattle every cabinet in your van.

I haven't soaked in every spot on this list, so treat it as a planning guide built from research, asking around, and trading notes with bush-plane pilots. The aim is a decent picture of where you can actually sleep near a soak in this state. If you're also weighing other kinds of sites, our Alaska state parks guide covers the developed campgrounds worth the drive.

So here's the rundown. Drive-up first, then the fly-in and boat-in stuff for people with bigger budgets than mine.

Chena hot springs: the only true drive-up and camp situation

If you want to camp at one of the hot springs in Alaska without chartering anything, Chena Hot Springs Resort at the end of Chena Hot Springs Road (about 60 miles east of Fairbanks) is basically it. The road is paved the whole way, which feels like a luxury after you've been on the Dalton.

The resort runs its own campground on site, with tent and RV sites, and the indoor pools and outdoor rock lake right there. It's not free, and the soak passes are separate from the camping fee, so budget accordingly. Prices shift seasonally, so check their site before you go. Cell service drops about halfway down Chena Hot Springs Road and doesn't come back. AT&T is dead, Verizon is dead, just accept it. Download maps and confirmations before you leave Fairbanks, because a booking you can't pull up is a booking you'll argue about at the gate.

If the resort campground feels too parking-lot for you, the state-run Rosehip Campground and Red Squirrel Campground in Chena River State Recreation Area are scattered along the same road. Way cheaper, way quieter, and you just drive back to the resort to soak. You can book through Alaska State Parks directly. Their site is clunky but it works, and you skip the third-party booking-fee racket entirely.

Bring a real sleeping bag, even in July. Nights in the interior get cold enough to surprise people who flew up from the lower 48. Clear skies make it worse, because the ground sheds its heat fast once the sun is low, and a soak that leaves you damp and warm at bedtime can turn into a chilly walk back to the tent.

Manley hot springs: end-of-the-road weird

Manley Hot Springs sits at the literal end of the Elliott Highway, 152 miles northwest of Fairbanks. The springs themselves are privately owned. You call ahead, the owners let you in, and you soak in greenhouse tubs surrounded by grapes and tomatoes. It is one of the strangest and best soaks in the state, and the greenhouse setting is a good example of what geothermal water can do in a place with a short growing season.

For sleeping, the village has a small free-ish campground by the slough. It's rough: a clearing, a pit toilet, and mosquitoes that will carry you off. It's $0 or close to it, but fees and facilities in small villages change, so confirm before you commit. There's also the Manley Roadhouse if you want a room and a hot meal.

The drive itself is the hard part. The Elliott is paved for the first stretch then turns to gravel with frost heaves that will throw your kitchen drawer open if you didn't latch it. Frost heaves come from ice lenses forming in the soil under the road, so the surface rolls and cracks in ways a smooth-looking gravel road never would. Don't try this in a low-clearance car. A 2WD vehicle can manage it if you drive slowly, but you'll be babying it the whole way, and you should carry a full-size spare, water, and food in case you wait a while for help.

Tolovana hot springs: hike or fly, then sleep in a cabin

Tolovana is the one for people who want the work-for-it version. It's an 11-mile trail in from a pullout on the Elliott Highway, or a short bush-plane hop from Fairbanks. There's no developed campground. You reserve one of three private cabins, or you tent next to them.

The soak is three wooden tubs out in the middle of nowhere, fed by the spring. In winter the trail is a popular ski and snowmachine route. In summer it's boggy and you will get wet feet. Plan accordingly. Permafrost keeps meltwater from draining, so the low ground stays saturated, and trail runners that dry quickly beat heavy boots that hold water. Tents and rain flies matter here, so check the tent options built for actual weather, not the $40 Walmart special.

Reservations go through the Tolovana cabin owners directly, not Recreation.gov. The cabins book out months ahead in winter.

Serpentine hot springs: Bering Land Bridge, fly-in only

Serpentine sits inside Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, which is roughly the most remote unit of the national park system. There's a bunkhouse near the springs (first-come, first-served, free), and you can pitch a tent outside it. The soak is a wooden bathhouse over the spring.

Getting there means chartering a small plane out of Nome or Kotzebue. It's not cheap. But if you're already going to Nome, and some people are, for the Iditarod or for fishing, it's the trip of a lifetime. Honestly this one sits at the top of my wish list, and my coffee budget is suffering just thinking about it.

Cell service: zero. Obviously. Bring a satellite messenger and tell someone your plan. Pilots in the bush often work around weather, so build slack into the return day. A flight that can't land because of fog doesn't care about your connecting ticket, and a spare day of food is cheap insurance.

Southeast Alaska: the boat-in soaks

This is where it gets fun if you have access to a boat, or you're willing to pay for a water taxi out of Sitka or Ketchikan. Southeast has a cluster of hot and warm springs scattered across the islands, mostly managed by the US Forest Service as part of the Tongass.

If you're going by boat, check the tide tables and marine forecast before anything else. Landings near these springs can be rocky or shallow at low water, and a skiff left carelessly on a falling tide can end up high and dry. Beach camping also means pitching above the high-tide line, which you can read from the debris and seaweed left behind.

The soak-and-sleep options worth knowing:

• Goddard Hot Springs — about 16 miles south of Sitka by boat. Two cedar tubs in small shelters, public use, free. No campground but you can tent on the beach.
• Baranof Warm Springs — east side of Baranof Island. Mix of private cabins and a public soak. Floatplane or boat from Sitka.
• White Sulphur Springs — west side of Chichagof Island. USFS cabin on site, reservable through Recreation.gov. Spectacular and very hard to get to.
• Shelokum Hot Springs — north of Ketchikan, USFS cabin and a short trail to the soak from the saltwater. Boat or floatplane in.
• Bell Island Hot Springs — historic resort north of Ketchikan, status varies, ask locally.

For the USFS cabins, Recreation.gov is the real booking portal and it actually works fine for AK cabins, way better than Reserve America does in other states. Book early though. The popular ones go in minutes when the window opens. It helps to have your account set up and payment saved before the window opens, and to have a few backup dates in mind.

What to pack that people forget

Alaska is wetter and colder than you think, even in August. Some stuff matters more here than down south.

A canister stove works fine in summer but canisters lose pressure fast in cold weather, because the fuel struggles to vaporise as it chills. If you're going shoulder season bring liquid fuel; our cold-weather Alaska camping picks go deeper on that. Water shoes for the soaks, since most of these have rocky or wooden bottoms and barefoot is a bad time. A real headnet, because the mosquitoes here are not a joke and your bandana strategy will fail. And dry bags, even if you think you don't need them. You do.

A few soak basics are worth repeating. Natural spring water can be hot enough to injure you, so test it with a hand or foot before you get in, and step out if you feel dizzy. Drink water before and after, skip the alcohol, and keep your head out of untreated pools. Bring a towel and a dry set of layers that stays in a dry bag until you're out of the water, because getting changed in cold air with wet skin is the miserable part.

Full gear notes live on the gear page if you want to nerd out. And if you're tying in a few day hikes around the springs, the trails section and our hiking notes have starting points. Lake-side stops can round out an interior loop too, so see our Alaska lake camping sites.

Which hot springs in Alaska are actually worth the drive (or the flight)

Honest take: if it's your first Alaska trip and you just want the experience, go to Chena. It's accessible, it's real, the soak is great, and you can do it as part of a bigger Fairbanks-area loop with Denali and the White Mountains. Don't overthink it.

Manley is for people who like weird and don't mind 150 miles of gravel each way. Some people would love it and some would hate it. It depends on the vibe you're after. If the gravel stretch is what puts you off, remember that the drive is part of the point.

The southeast and bush-plane springs, Serpentine, Tolovana, White Sulphur, are bigger commitments and bigger payoffs. Don't try to squeeze them into a 7-day trip with other stuff. They deserve their own block of time, partly because weather can delay a flight or a boat by a day or more and you don't want a schedule that can't absorb that.

One thing worth saying once: pack out everything, including the stuff you think will decompose. These springs are fragile and the visitor count is creeping up. The Leave No Trace principles cover the basics, including how far to camp from water and how to handle waste. That's it, no lecture.

If you'd rather skip the paid pools altogether on the way, our guide to free dispersed camping in Alaska lists places to pull in between soaks.

What we'd actually do

If I had two weeks and a normal budget I'd fly into Fairbanks, rent or drive a van, do Chena for two nights, then push out to Manley for two more, then bounce back south for a Denali side trip. That gets you two real hot springs camping nights, the interior road experience, and you don't need a charter plane. Total damage is mostly fuel and the soak fees. Brutal on tires, gentle on the wallet.

If I had three weeks and was feeling rich, I'd add a southeast leg out of Sitka and book a USFS cabin at White Sulphur. One day. One day.