Alaska

At the top of East Hill Road is Skyline Drive. Turn to the east (right) on Skyline and you’ll find the Carl E. Wynn Nature Center, which offers guided walks with a naturalist familiar with the area. Watch for sandhill cranes as well as moose and occasional porcupine. Turn to the west (left) on Skyline and you’ll soon find a scenic view pullout, where you can photograph all of Homer, Kachemak Bay State Park and the Kenai Mountains. Continue west across the ridge for panoramic views of downtown Homer, the Spit and the Bay. At Diamond Ridge, turn right for an eagle’s eye view of Cook Inlet and its volcanoes, or head down West Hill Road to Homer.

Below the Bypass and accessed mainly from Main Street, the district was once the heart of Homer. It is still a vibrant area that draws locals and visitors for beach walks, dining, entertainment and art as well as basic needs like help with computers.

After the 1964 earthquake, when some of the bluff area slid into Cook Inlet, the area was all but abandoned. Then in the late 1980s a group of artists began renting and renovating the old Inlet Trading Post, creating an innovative gallery studio and sparking the rebirth of Old Town. Within a few years the building became an incubator, the center of an Old Town revival. Two Sisters Bakery, Old Inlet Bookshop, Kachemak Heritage Land Trust and several brewers got their start in the building and then built their own separate locations, up and down Bunnell Street. But despite all the new development, Old Town's public spaces are still rough.

If you're interested in tidal life and exceptional vistas, Bishop's Beach affords an excellent opportunity. At the access point is parking next to the beach and a covered picnic area. From here, walk east or west on the beach. At low and minus tides, check tidepools for a variety of interesting plant and animal species. Various birds are also common visitors.

The Ocean Drive region runs between the Downtown area and the beginning of the Homer Spit. In this region, you will find the Homer Airport Terminal & Cargo Facility with commercial flights and private aircraft facilities. Adjacent to the Airport is Beluga Lake where float planes take visitors on a variety of wildlife and scenic adventures. The Beluga Wetlands and the Kachemak Bay Wetlands are home to more than 100 species of birds who visit the vicinity during spring migration or nest in summer, including shorebirds, waterfowl and songbirds. Along Ocean Drive itself is the Homer Farmer’s Market which is open from around Memorial Day through September along with a number of small businesses.

Homer is known for being at the end of the road, and the 19-mile drive east of downtown takes you to the end of the road itself – the farthest you can drive on continuous roadway in North America.  Make a quick drive out and back in an hour to 90 minutes to take a picture and say you’ve been there, or spend the day enjoying all that Homer is known for along the way: world-class wining & dining, art studios, peony farms, breath-taking scenery, hiking trails, pioneer homesteads, birding, wildflowers, and shopping. 

Discover some of Homer’s lesser known adventures like golfing on a 9-hole course with one of the most spectacular views in the world or riding horseback to the head of the bay. From traditional bed and breakfast inns with warm Alaskan hospitality and full hot breakfasts to cozy cabins and elegant vacation rentals, some of Homer’s finest accommodations are along East End Road. 

East End Road begins at the intersection of Pioneer Avenue and Lake Street. The pavement ends past mile 19 with a small turnaround. The gravel road continues about 2 miles through a Russian Old Believers community to a turnaround on a high bluff overlooking the Fox River Flats Critical Habitat Area. Wherever you turn around, you can stake a claim that you’ve been to the end of the road!

Homer's Downtown area is centered around Pioneer Avenue. Pioneer Avenue represents the heart of Homer; it is the centerpiece of our business community, and a primary destination for visitors and locals alike.   Pioneer Avenue boasts numerous art galleries, a world class museum, restaurants, coffee shops, unique curiosity shops, services, a college, hotels, city government and more! You will find historic buildings, new buildings, open spaces and new attractive restroom facilities. 

In addition to year-round small businesses, Pioneer Avenue is host to the Winter Carnival Parade in February and the hometown 4th of July Parade. 

Baycrest is the overlook at the top of the hill entering Homer...the first view of Kachemak Bay and a stunning one at that!  A favorite picture spot, with breathtaking views. Several peony and vegetable gardens maintained by the Homer Gardening Club, plus benches and viewing scopes to check out the glaciers and volcanoes makes this a park everyone must visit! Stop in the Homer Chamber of Commerce information + rest stop shack for flyers, posters, and listed services for all sorts of activities, vendors and places to eat and stay in Homer.

Once you’ve made it to Homer, the best is yet to come! Seldovia is an historic harbor front village in a stunning glacier-fed bay with Alaska Native and Russian roots, now a quaint, friendly, sport fishing community, just a short distance across the bay from Homer.  In addition to seasonal events, nature tours, art galleries, wonderful dining and lodging accommodations, Seldovia also has excellent fishing for Chinook or king salmon.

Getting to Seldovia has many options. The Seldovia Fast Ferry departs the Homer Harbor daily in the late morning and returns in the afternoon around 4:30. You also can take a water taxi, or Smokey Bay Air has daily flights for stunning aerial rides to the Seldovia airstrip. For more information visit CityofSeldovia.com

Look across Kachemak Bay and you’ll see Kachemak Bay State Park, the gem of the state park system.  This is Alaska’s first state park and one of the biggest. Kachemak Bay State Park covers over 400,000 acres and has more than 80 miles of trails. There’s something for everyone. Hiking, camping, kayaking, wildlife viewing: let your inner adventurer or photographer run wild. Trails range from an easy 3-mile day hike from Glacier Spit to the Grewingk Glacier Lake, to a more athletic hike along Grace Ridge with sweeping views of Kachemak Bay and across lower Cook Inlet. Backpackers enjoy the hike from Humpy Creek across the Portlock Glacier Plateau to Emerald Lake and on up the Blue Ice Trail to touch the glacier. If kayaking is your thing, paddle along the shores of Kachemak Bay State Park and view sea otters up close and personal, watch bald eagles catch their morning meal, or listen to the kittiwakes and murres at the Gull Island rookery. 

China Poot Bay A fertile combination of tidal flats and channels makes this bay a cornucopia of sea life. Tide pools provide perfect viewing of sea stars, mussels, urchins and sea anemones. Waterfowl thrive on the tidal flats. A trailhead at the head of the bay leads you to the Coalition Trail and Halibut Cove Lagoon Trail. As with all the bays along Kachemak Bay, this bay is affected by the tides. There are many sand and mud bars. Eldred Passage Eldred Passage has magnificent views and wildlife. Access to Sadie Knob, Grace Ridge and Tutka Lake Trails. Bear Cove This is a secluded cove located at the head of the Bay. Enjoy clamming and kayaking. Peterson Bay The field station for the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies makes Peterson Bay home as do several oyster farms. Halibut Cove Lagoon The lagoon is home to many sea mammals including harbor porpoises, harbor seals, sea otters and land otters. This is a tidal lagoon and the tides are extreme. Although the waters are placid, the channel feeding the lagoon can be very dramatic when the tide rages in and out. If you are kayaking this channel, it is recommended that you have white water and cold water experience. The ranger station is located at the head of the lagoon and offers a public dock and public use cabins. Sadie Cove Wildlife abounds in this fjord - like bay with steep mountain sides. Sadie Peak is the highest point. Look for mountain goats grazing and keep your eye out for sea otters. This bay is very deep and there is little tidal current. Check your weather. Occasionally the “Sadie Eighties” blow in the summer creating severe wind gusts. Tutka Bay Tutka Bay is the longest bay on Kachemak Bay. Bordered by high, steep mountains, you get a real sense of remote Alaska here. Trails lead to the top of Grace Ridge and up to Tutka Lake. This scenic bay is a great place for the more experienced kayaker to explore. Water taxis or float planes are the means of transportation to these areas off the road system. A water taxi can transport you and your kayak, or guided kayaking trips are available for most of these locations.

The Homer Spit is a long, narrow finger of land jutting 4.5 miles into Kachemak Bay. Dotted with businesses, the area caters to visitors and provides numerous recreation opportunities, from fishing and beachcombing to shopping and boating.

With glacier-studded mountains and crystal-clear water surrounding you, the tiny businesses and miles of beaches that make up the Spit also make for one of Homer's most beautiful features. Take long walks, take photos, check out the boats returning with their huge catches, or cast a line for salmon yourself at The Fishin' Hole-located near the boat harbor-which is stocked with kings and silvers. Test out your sea legs with a fishing charters for halibut and salmon, head out on a guided sea kayaking trip, or hop a ferry across the bay to the quaint boardwalk-lined towns like Halibut Cove and Seldovia. The Spit also offers some of the best eagle viewing in the state - up to several hundred during certain times of the year! Extreme low tides (say a minus-15 foot) expose interesting sub-sea flora and fauna on beaches and harbor piers.

Since we weren't here when it formed, we rely on science, archeology and legend to know what caused the four-mile-long stretch of land that extends half way across Kachemak Bay near where the bay extends easterly from Cook Inlet. It is thought to be a moraine left behind by a long ago glacier that may have also been the creator of Kachemak Bay. The Spit was continuously reshaped by ocean currents until about 1000 years ago when early Alaska Natives began to inhabit it and re-inforced it in places to keep it from washing away. To this day, Homerites are keeping an eye on erosion and sandbagging as needed to prevent this vital piece of the town from being cut off from the mainland.