Seattle to Anchorage in my 2020 towing a cargo trailer. ~2,400 miles. Sharing some learnings

Hello, my Tacoma brethren! I just completed the longest road trip of my life, moving myself and all of my belongings from Seattle, WA to Anchorage, AK via transiting through Canada. This also represented my first time ever towing anything. I figured I’d post about my experience and learnings in case anyone finds this useful.

Let me know if you have any specific questions and I’ll do my best to answer!

Setup

My truck is my pride and joy: a 2020 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro. She’s not heavily modded, with the only performance upgrade being the OEM TRD cold air intake. The suspension, transmission, etc. are all stock TRD Pro parts. I’ve also done a lot of small internal and external cosmetic and utility upgrades – let me know if you are curious about anything and I’m happy to answer. Prior to leaving, she had only ~3,200 miles on the odometer.

The trailer is a 2021 Cargo King Lancer 6x10 single axle trailer. I drove down to OR to buy it brand new, then drove straight back up to Seattle to load it. I changed nothing about the trailer, and it remains bone stock. It’s also now for sale up here in the Anchorage area as I bought it for moving-only and have no other use for it – DM me if you’re interested!


Note my girlfriend also drove up in her car separately, a 2015 Jeep Renegade. We had her roof cargo basket loaded up, and also picked up a trailer hitch platform and ratchet strapped the Yeti cooler and a storage bin of cooking stuff to it.

Route
Here is the route on Google Maps. We took five nights and six days total, traveling along the Al-Can highway:

Day 1: Seattle, WA -> Abbotsford-Huntingdon, BC border checkpoint -> 100 Mile House, BC
Day 2: 100 Mile House, BC -> Dawson Creek, BC
Day 3: Dawson Creek, BC -> Muncho Lake, BC
Day 4: Muncho Lake, BC - > Whitehorse, YT
Day 5: Whitehorse, YT -> Beaver Creek border checkpoint, YT -> Tok, AK
Day 6: Tok, AK -> Anchorage, AK

Your chosen route through Canada must be as direct as possible. If this weren’t in COVID-19 circumstances, I imagine we would have taken a longer, more different route to check out some of the awesome national parks and whatnot. However, you must drive straight through, stopping only for gas (paying at the pump if possible) and your hotel. They ask you bring enough food to last your journey, and if you must stop, use the drive thru only.

Note you will need to make hotel accommodations in advance, and be sure to have proof of your reservations handy for the Canadian border. They take the COVID-19 protocols seriously – see below.

Canadian border
Canada presently has extremely strict COVID-19 guidelines for travelers. No entry is permitted for non-essential travel, meaning you can’t cross the border for any recreational reason like visiting Vancouver, etc. However, fortunately, transiting through Canada to Alaska is permitted, provided you can show proof of employment or residence in Alaska. In our case, that document was a copy of our lease for our new home in Anchorage.

We were running super behind even before our first day, loading the trailer well into the night (calling it quits about 2am) and then not hitting the road until 2pm the next day. As such, we didn’t reach the border until after 6pm. Despite being only ~4 cars ahead of us, we waited at the border for 3+ hours. The Abbotsford-Huntingdon/Sumas checkpoint is specifically for in-transit Alaskan travelers (we couldn’t go through Vancouver), and the process to get checked in, tested, searched, and issued paperwork took a while for each person. We made it through to border into British Columbia just after midnight.

My advice: be prepared! If you’re making this journey, spend several hours (or even days, in my case) reading and re-reading all the available documentation on Canada’s federal website about traveling during the pandemic. Have your paperwork in order (your proof of residence or employment in Alaska, your route plan, proof of your hotel stays, your COVID test [you must have a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours of showing up at the border], items you wish to declare, etc.). We were extremely prepared - the Canadian border folks were vocally appreciative of that fact - and I think it made our process much smoother; I believe we went through much faster than the folks ahead of us as a result. They alluded several times to the fact that many Americans show up to the border completely unprepared and in some cases turned away because of this (a few people ahead of us went straight back through the American border). Note your cars and cargo will be searched, you’ll get another on-site COVID-19 test, and you’ll be hanging around for the right paperwork.

Note exiting Canada was a breeze – you simply hit the last Canadian border stop on the way out to turn in your vehicle tag and paperwork (this took literally 20 seconds) and the US Alaskan border waved us right through.

I must also add, the Canadian border folks were extremely friendly and accommodating – they were so, so wonderful, and the complete polar opposite of the stereotypical interaction with the US customs folks, especially on the southern US border. They spent time with us and bent over backwards to help us confirm our route, road conditions, and answer all of our questions. I need to write them a letter (if that’s even a thing) praising the officers and my experience.

Drive
One of the biggest surprises of the trip was that the drive was an absolute cakewalk! The roads were incredibly well-maintained – no big potholes, obstacles in the road to drive around, frost weave, etc. It got a little bit hairy in the Yukon when it was snowing really hard and visibility conditions weren’t great, but I just slowed way down, went into low gear, and it was just fine. The only slightly scary moment was my fault – most of the trip was driving in a straight line for hundreds and hundreds of miles, but there was one turn coming up that I didn’t notice (my fault for not looking at maps), so I had to slow down quickly rather than the slow gradual deacceleration you should do when towing. Because of this, I started slipping and sliding, but fortunately it was at an empty intersection and I managed to miss plowing into the back of my girlfriend’s Jeep. It would have been a disaster, though, if there were any other cars on the road. Be alert and stay alert!

Other than that, the entire drive was stunningly gorgeous. Huge, open spaces of just raw nature, just blue skies and forest – an extremely refreshing view after being used to commuting around the disgustingly overpopulated and overbuilt greater Seattle area. We saw a ton of wildlife – caribou, reindeer, and hundreds of bison when we get into the Yukon, and more than once we had to slow down or stop to wait for them to get out of the way. The bison are enormous! The view got especially beautiful when we entered Alaska. HUGE mountains 360 degrees all around you. Enormous glaciers and ice fields. It reminded me of The Simpsons movie when they entered Alaska!

Trailer/road trip tips & learnings
As I mentioned, this trip was the first time I’ve towed anything at all. I was a total trailer novice before this with literally zero experience. I spent many nights watching YouTube videos, reading Reddit threads, and scouring the Tacoma World forums. I also learned plenty along the way. Here’s a bunch of random thoughts and learnings in no particular order:

• RTFM – read the manual! There are several pages about towing in the Tacoma owner’s manual. I reread these pages several times, and learned a ton.
  
  
• Trailer weight and proper loading – this is one of the most important aspects of towing. If you get it wrong, you’ll get trailer sway, and we’ve probably all seen the video of the RC car with the improperly loaded trailer on the treadmill. Here’s another horrifying IRL video. There are plenty of examples on YouTube, unfortunately.
  
  Ideally, you want the heaviest items over the trailer axle or ahead of it, with total weight distribution about 60/40 front to back. ~10-15% of the total trailer weight should be over the tongue.
  
  Unfortunately, for my initial loading, I way overdid the front of the trailer since I was so paranoid about trailer sway. Take a look at my truck’s rear suspension in this pic – it’s riding WAY too low!
  
  I ended up stopping when I took that pic and moving a ton of the heavy items off the tongue to the rear of the trailer and my girlfriend’s car. I also removed some of the heavy items I had in the truck bed. The suspension sat much more evenly after that. Fortunately, I only drove ~120 miles like that, so hopefully there’s no lasting damage.
  
  Note I used only a standard hitch, but perhaps a weight distribution hitch could have helped – I’m not sure. Unfortunately, I never found an open weigh station, so I don’t know what my total payload ended up being. The trailer was just over 1k lbs unloaded, and I don’t think I came anywhere near the max the truck can tow (6,400 lbs).

• Driving – assuming your trailer is loaded properly, if you just drive slowly, defensively, and overly cautious, you’ll be just fine. I had the luxury of seeing virtually no cars on the road most of the time, and when I did, I tried to keep ~6 seconds of following distance. When I needed to slow down, I braked super gradually. On the inverse, acceleration was also a slow, gradual process. If people behind you are upset about your speed, they will pass you – don’t feel pressured to put yourself and your truck transmission at risk because of peer pressure!
  
  In my case, there were also plenty of steep hills and mountain passes, both uphill and down. When going down, be cautious not to ride your brakes, as you could heat up your own brakes super hot, which will cause problems. Instead, I would brake for only a few seconds at a time, and go into a lower gear to utilize engine breaking. Going up any semi-steeps hills, I’d also drop into a lower gear.
  
  Remember that you’ll need ECT Power on at all times. By default, I’d drive in S4, and drop into S3 for steep hills. A few times I dropped into S2 when there was a lot of snow and/or ice on the ground. This seemed to work great.
  
  In terms of speed, the manual says you should go no faster than 55 mph. I will admit there were a few times I’d cruise a little faster than that when the roads were clear and empty, but never more than 65 mph.

• Reversing – reversing a trailer is hard. At least for me, as a novice. The manual says if you need to reverse, grip the bottom of the wheel with one hand, and turn in the direction you want the trailer to go. Even then, it’s hard to balance turning and not jackknifing.
  
  Fortunately for me, I achieved my goal of never having to go into reverse in all 2,400 miles, ha. Just plan your turns into parking lots and make sure there’s enough room to pull through. I had the advantage of my girlfriend being my “scout” to drive through a lot to make sure there was room for me.

• Gas mileage – this was another area that surprised me. I checked my gas mileage semi-regularly and it was always between 11-13 mpg. I expected much, much worse. I wonder how much the cold air intake helped with this, as it supposedly improves MPG.
  
  I did save all my receipts from filling up. I haven’t added them up yet to determine total gallons (liters) filled, but let me know if you’re interested and I’ll add them up.
  
  You’ll also want to bring extra gas, just in case – Canada requires 10 gallons per vehicle. I picked up a few extra Rotopax containers, and we ended up bringing 24 extra gallons between the two vehicles. We ended up never needing it, as there were plenty of gas stations, and we’d stop whenever we saw a gas station if we were lower than 3/4 full.

• Maintenance and preparedness along the way – be sure to have a torque wrench or impact driver with torque stick handy, as you’ll want to check the tightness of your trailer lug nuts every few hundred miles. I tightened mine every morning before leaving. I also had some basic tools handy, an air compressor, tire repair kit, snatch strap, and d-rings. Fortunately, I never had to use any of those.
  
  Also be sure to check your connections frequently – your safety chains, trailer lights, ball mount, and coupler. I’d do a quick check any time we stopped for gas and before leaving in the morning. Never found any surprises, but it doesn’t hurt to be sure.

• QoL on long trips – get out and stretch whenever you can. There were fortunately plenty of rest stops (even if just a single bathroom building), so get out to pee and stretch your legs! Audiobooks also helped me tremendously and made the drive seem super quick – I’m halfway through the third book of The Dark Tower series by Stephen King, and it’s awesome so far.

Pics
I really failed in the pics department. I took a pic per day to post to Reddit, but that’s about it. I wish I would have taken way more since the drive was incredibly beautiful, but per the COVID-19 guidelines mentioned above, we weren’t allowed to stop anywhere, plus we wanted to get home ASAP. Here’s an album with the few pics I did take.


P.S. - I have since swapped the WA plate with one from AK. As much as I like the WA plates, the Alaskan plates look sooo good.

That’s it! Sorry for such a long post. Hopefully this is helpful for someone!

 

Nice read, good luck in Anchorage

 

Great to hear about your adventure and that it turned out well. Glad you got to enjoy the natural beauty of BC.

 

Excellent write up of your trip, enjoyed reading it!

 

Thanks for this posting. I found it to be an interesting read.
From1998-2012 I drove back and forth US to AK thru Canada numerous times, using both the ALCAN as well as the Cassiar. (I also ferried many times. ).
Granted, your write-up has a much more important addition. That being "Covid times". Very good write-up. Again.

 

Really glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading!

 

Moose’s Tooth, Taco King, Arctic Roadrunner, Guido’s Pizza, Tommy’s Burgers, F Street, White Spot Halibut Sandwich. (lived there 20 yrs)

 

Flew to anchorage in March for a ski trip. Skied over in Girdwood, at Alyeska and some BC skiing as well. I absolutely loved AK. Trying to go back next yr. Guy I know has reserved a helicopter for the month of April out of Girdwood that Id love to get on.

 

Ate some Moose's Tooth pizza today! It was incredible!

 

Try the McKinley burger at Arctic Roadrunner or the pozole at Taco King on northern lights. Both winners! Also, if you want to get Moose’s tooth for take out and avoid the long line, their other location Bears Tooth is a more “local” option.

 

Great post! RTFM and watch that weight distribution - solid advice. Q: How is Canada about transiting through with firearms? Can you do it if you can show proof (as you did) of residence in AK or the lower 48? Driving to AK is on the list, but hesitant about traveling to/through the border with a firearm. Kinda screwed if I get turned around.

 

I would not plan on bringing a firearm to the border. You will more than likely not be able to cross the border with it. They have lots of documentation on their website but IIRC you can basically only bring in a basic hunting rifle or shotgun with a super limited magazine/tube capacity (3-5 or something like that). If you're moving to AK, you might have to either ship or fly back home and fly to AK with them. The transiting factor does allow you to carry more ammo though (up to 50k rounds).

 

Good to know - THANKS!! Kinda sucks that we have to drop our stuff off to get to another state. Oh well. Also thinking of a trip to Banff. Decisions, decisions.

 

You probably know this but do note travel through Canada is still restricted to essential-only (like transiting), so you'll have to wait until they open up to go to Banff. I want to do the same. That is, unless they've changed things super recently.

 

The closed border was extended till 7/21/21 recently.

 

Is the ten gallons of gas per vehicle thing a Covid issue? I've been up to Alaska twice and while we did carry extra gas I don't recall it being required.

Nice writeup. I'd never seen that treadmill video before, that's actually a really good visual for proper v improper loading.

 

Not sure if it was a COVID thing but FWIW I didn't need to use a single gallon. I just stopped at every station if I had any less than 3/4 tank and didn't even come close to running low.

 

Thanks both... back to the drawing board. LoL.