The Bellingham Cruise Terminal in Fairhaven is the southern terminus of the Alaska Marine Highway System, the state ferry network that connects southeast Alaska's coastal communities — Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg, Sitka, Juneau, and beyond — to the contiguous US. The ferry to Ketchikan takes about 37 hours; Juneau is two to three days north. It is one of the great slow-travel routes in North America.
The ship passes through the Inside Passage, the protected network of channels between the mainland and the coastal islands, with scenery that is frankly overwhelming — glaciers calving into fjords, orca pods, humpback whales surfacing alongside the boat. The ferry is a working transport link for Alaskans, not a cruise, which keeps the atmosphere genuine and the prices reasonable relative to the experience. Staterooms are available but many passengers camp on the solarium deck in sleeping bags and watch the landscape slide past.