Road trip: Driving a 300k mile VW to Alaska and back

Hopefully this will turn into a trip report in a few months but for now I'm slowly starting to get the car ready for the voyage and figured I'd take you along. I'd be lying if I said the anticipation wasn't killing me :chris:


The plan:

A friend and I are going to drive my Volkswagen Jetta through British Columbia Canada later this summer. We have 3 weeks set aside for this trip and I hope it will be enough time! We'll drive through Glacier, Banff and Jasper national parks, see several large glaciers and travel through some very remote sections of BC. At this point I'm hoping the turn around point will be Hyder Alaska but who knows where we might end up. The plan is to camp out as much as possible and see as much as there is to see in our time frame. Did I mention my irrational fear of bears?? Uh-oh.


That drip pin (Hyder) is a long way from Lewiston Utah...




The car:

2000 VW Jetta TDI which has 296K miles on it right now. I average 50mpg in the summer and given the distance and 99% of the route being paved I think this will be a great way to not blow all my cash on fuel.

I can't take all the credit though I stole the idea (and the car lol) from someone else




Stay tuned..

One problem with all MKIV Jetta's is the super vulnerable oil pan. They are made of paper thin cast aluminum and it (along with the AC pump) sits pretty low to the ground. The worry of hitting a pothole or rock and blowing out the pan was a worry of mine. I ordered up a big ol' Atlas skid plate from Evolution Import. This should do the trick






Jetta trunks are HUGE they will fit nearly anything inside you could imagine... except for my 53 quart ARB We are planing on spending several days away from services and ice machines so I'd hate to leave the fridge behind. I'm not thrilled about it but the back seat is the only other option..

The cushions pop out easily and leave a nice flat surface. I installed some nut rivets in the floor for the tie-down straps. This way everything will remove/install quickly when it goes to and from daily driver mode.

I never thought of a Jetta as an expedition vehicle, but now that you have an ARB fridge and your driving it to Alaska, I guess it fits!! Just need a RTT!

Stole the idea... I'm excited for you, I think it's a grand idea! I should have written up a trip report from our Canada drive.

I might see you up there, got an invite and a damn good reason to head that way this Summer myself! Not sure how it's going to come together, either a motorcycle or car to Hyder, AK / Stewart, BC, CA!

Oh so cool!!! Please do us all a favor and document the hell out of the whole process. I'm sure everyone of us has a similar adventure on our bucket list

Move the cooler to behind the driver's seat. Looks like that would allow the passenger to recline?

boogie_4wheel said:

Move the cooler to behind the driver's seat. Looks like that would allow the passenger to recline?

Click to expand...

probably where it is because of the 60/40 split.

Greg said:

I never thought of a Jetta as an expedition vehicle, but now that you have an ARB fridge and your driving it to Alaska, I guess it fits!! Just need a RTT!

Stole the idea... I'm excited for you, I think it's a grand idea! I should have written up a trip report from our Canada drive.

I might see you up there, got an invite and a damn good reason to head that way this Summer myself! Not sure how it's going to come together, either a motorcycle or car to Hyder, AK / Stewart, BC, CA!

Click to expand...

A RTT and a snorkel would really top it off! haha

Nice! You should do it. That would be cool if we crossed paths up there

Tonkaman said:

Oh so cool!!! Please do us all a favor and document the hell out of the whole process. I'm sure everyone of us has a similar adventure on our bucket list

Click to expand...

I'm going to try to. I love reading trip reports hopefully I can give back and contribute something useful. Everything is going to be super budget minded so I'm planning on documenting all the costs too.

boogie_4wheel said:

Move the cooler to behind the driver's seat. Looks like that would allow the passenger to recline?

Click to expand...

Spork said:

probably where it is because of the 60/40 split.

Click to expand...

Oh geez I thought about which side to put it on for quite awhile and tilting the passenger seat back never once crossed my mind. Yes I'm definitely going to move it to the other side thanks for pointing that out. A few more nut rivets and it should be pretty easy. I'll loose the entire back seat due to the 60/40 split, but I'm not planning on having anyone ride back there anyway so it should be fine.

Very cool. This trip is on my bucket list too.

awesome, can't wait to see the pictures.