Changes

There isn't much in the way of developments on the road, so your rides, though likely infrequent, will be long and far. The best place to get started from the Fairbanks area is probably the '''Hilltop Cafe''' north of Fairbanks... I swear there used to be a public bus that ran there from Fairbanks, but I can't find any info about it right now. The Hilltop is frequented by most of the truckers that work the highway back and forth so try and get a ride at least to Coldfoot from here. Coldfoot is a good place to explore the brooks range and still have access to the road traffic, it is also officially within the Arctic. It really doesn't matter where you get a ride to, though, since it's a two way road with pretty much nowhere else to go but north or south... so, really take what you can get, and you'll eventually get where you're going. Any rooms you might find along the way (at Yukon, Coldfoot, Wiseman, and Prudhoe) will be ridiculously expensive ($150 and up), and won't be worth the money, so come prepared to camp. At that, most of the land surrounding the road, with the exception of the land immediately around the oil pipeline, is public, so camp whereever you want unless it's obviously owned by someone.

Good destinations to aim for on your first day from Fairbanks would be '''The Yukon River Crossing''', '''Coldfoot''', '''Wiseman''', or any '''Pump Station''' along the pipeline... all these places will see all traffic on the road, will be safe for drivers to stop, and you'll likely be able to actually converse with drivers in person there. From the aforementioned locales, it's up to you whether you want to go all the way to Prudhoe or not. I would advise against going there unless you're willing to cough up the money for a room or are willing to turn around and try to hitchhike back south on the same day (again, camping can be especially dangerous in Prudhoe with the risk of Polar Bears, but it almost certainly has been done before... so... yeah)