Juneau has no roads in. Everything and everyone arrives by water or air, which explains the frontier feel the cruise dock does not quite erase. The Mendenhall Glacier is twenty minutes from downtown and the walk to Nugget Falls, flat and easy, puts you in front of a waterfall with the glacier face behind it, one of the best effort-to-reward ratios in Alaska.

Humpbacks feed in the channels here all summer, and the whale-watching operators are so confident they publish sighting guarantees. If the day is clear, ride the tram up Mount Roberts for the view down the Gastineau Channel, then walk down through the forest.

Crab shacks near the dock sell legs by the pound; eat them outside, standing up, like everyone else.