An outdoor and sports writer for the Anchorage Daily News for more than 10 years and currently living amongst the wilderness of Chugach State Park, Melissa DeVaughn knows Alaska's backcountry like the back of her hand.

Alaska Adventure Guide offers informative descriptions on enough outdoor pursuits to keep you busy for a lifetime. The sea kayaking chapter covers a half-dozen of Alaska's finest, most dramatic coastal paddling locales—the "best of the best" as the author puts it—from easy weekends to two-week epics. Like the other chapters, it opens with a helpful, just-the-facts summary before diving into more detailed descriptions. This isn't a stand-alone guide to every trip, but it is enough to get you going, and the comprehensive resource and outfitter listings are cherry-picked from experience and local knowledge, a refreshing change from the mind-numbing array of web search results (Google "Alaska kayaking"—we dare you).

More info is available at the publisher's website, Menasha Ridge Press:

This guide attempts to target your interests and save you time, money, and effort so that nothing is wasted during your trip. Because Alaska is so big and your options so varied, the guide is organized so you can zero in on the activity or activities that appeal to you most. Thirteen chapters focus solely on adventure travel, each devoted to a single activity.

The five regional chapters that follow focus primarily on the basics in a given area of the state: getting around, shopping, lodging, dining, and entertainment. Once you’ve chosen the adventure of your dreams, you can go to the appropriate regional chapter to get the scoop on the best places in the vicinity to stay, eat, buy gear, rent a car, and learn about local culture and history.

The objective is not to provide the most information about destinations or attractions, but, rather, the most useful information. The guide is opinionated, and for good reason. Any destination or outfitter listed here has made the cut by proving itself a wonderful place to visit or a reliable company with which to do business. After all, isn’t the point of a guidebook to help you make the most informed choices?

Buy a copy here, 526 pages, softcover, $18.95 US.