Seward sits at the head of Resurrection Bay on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, backed by mountains and glaciers on three sides. It is the main gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park and one of the best places in Alaska to see tidewater glaciers, whales, and sea otters from a day boat.
The town itself is small — a few blocks of restaurants, outfitters, and the excellent Alaska SeaLife Center, which rehabilitates marine wildlife and lets you watch Steller sea lions and puffins up close. But the real draw is the water. Half-day and full-day cruises into the fjords head to Exit Glacier calving into the sea, humpback whales breaching, and colonies of kittiwakes nesting on sheer rock faces.
On land, the hike to Exit Glacier is the most accessible glacier walk in Alaska — you can drive to the trailhead and be standing at the ice face within an hour. The Harding Icefield Trail, which starts from the same trailhead, is a more serious all-day climb to a vast expanse of ice stretching to the horizon. Mount Marathon looms above town and offers a vertiginous scramble to panoramic views.
Seward is also the southern terminus of the Alaska Railroad, and the train ride from Anchorage through the mountains is one of the great North American rail journeys. An engineering oddity worth finding is the Lowell Creek Diversion Tunnel, which shoots a creek through the mountain and into the sea to protect the town from flooding.