Lonely Planet

*This is a direct debit offer for UK residents only. You will pay £36.99 every 12 issues - saving 25% on the usual shop price. Future Mapping Company World Wall Map for first 80 subscribers only; we reserve the right to fulfil all subsequent orderswith a product of equal value. You may cancel your subscription at any time and receive a full refund on all un-mailed issues. Full UK subscription rate for 12 issues is £49.20, Europe/Eire £65, rest of world £75. Calls will cost 7p per minute plus yourtelephone company’s access charge. Calls from mobiles and other providers may vary. Offer closes on 4th May 2017. †Guidebook discount available when buying online via Lonely Planet shop. Offer not available with any other offer or discount andexcludes guidebook packs, digital products, travel gear and delivery charges.MAKE IT HAPPENCALL US ON 03330 162 125 AND QUOTE LPP21017(lines open 8am–6pm weekdays and 9am–1pm Saturday for orders only)ORDER ONLINE ATbuysubscriptions.com/LPP21017Subscribe andsave 27%PLUS RECEIVELonely Planet’s Secret Marvelsof the World book, worth £19.99*This is a direct debit offer for UK residents only. You will pay £18.50 for 6 issues then £18.50 every 6 issues – saving 27% on the usual shop price. Secret Marvels of the World book for first 50 subscribers only; we reserve the right to fulfil all subsequentorders with a product of equal value. You may cancel your subscription at any time and receive a full refund on all un-mailed issues. Full UK subscription rate for 12 issues is £50.40, Europe/Eire £65, rest of world £75. Call charges from mobile phoneswill cost between 3p and 55p per minute but are included in free call packages. Lines are open 8.00am–6.00pm weekdays and 9.00am–1pm Saturday for orders only. Overseas subscriptions call, +44 (0) 1604 973 733. Offer closes on 5 October 2017.†Guidebook discount available when buying online via Lonely Planet shop. Offer not available with any other offer or discount and excludes guidebook packs, digital products, travel gear and delivery charges.SUBSCRIBER BENEFITSSave 27% on the usual shop pricewith your subscriptionMoney-back guarantee –cancel and we’ll refund your remaining issuesSave 35% on Lonely Planet guidebooks –exclusive to our subscribers†``````Never miss an issue –delivered direct to your door``````Receive unique, collectablecovers, only seen by our subscribersTreat yourself or a loved one to a LonelyPlanet Traveller subscription and pay just£18.50 every 6 issues – a saving of 27%on the standard shop price. We’ll also sendyou a copy of Lonely Planet’s Secret Marvelsof the World book, worth £19.99.£3.08AN ISSUEUsual shopprice £4.20``````© Lucas Payne / Getty Images``````longtitude / -180w/-120w longtitude / -180w/-120w‘It’s a weird and wonderful place, populated by oddballs and eccentrics, ideal for kayaking isolated rivers with moose and bears for company’``````and the highway closes from October to April. You could fly There’s no public transportfrom Tok, but that’s cheating. See http://www.townofchicken.com.``````I wanted wilderness. I wanted adventure. I wanted to drive the open road. Heading off toAlaska across the Top of the World Highway, a winding mountain road only open in``````summer, seemed like the ideal plan. Until I arrived in Chicken.A handful of log cabins in themiddle of nowhere, surrounded by wilderness, Chicken is a tiny speck in a landscape that is``````colossal, unforgiving and raw. And, oh, it has a saloon with a cannon that shoots panties intothe air. In fact, it’s hard to find the bar among the sheer number of knickers, baseball hats, license``````Alaska, usa, 64.0753 / -141.9361Chicken, Alaska``````plates and handwritten notes pinned to the walls.Chicken is one of Alaska’slast gold rush remnants – when the highway closes in October the population drops to singlefigures and the village succumbs to isolation and the Arctic winter. During the summer a trickle ofprospectors, intrepid RV drivers and thrill seekers make their way here to try their luck in the creeks,to learn about frontier history or tick one more kooky adventure offEarly prospectors arrived their list.here in the late 1800s and only survived their first winter thanks to the abundance of ptarmigan (atype of wild grouse). By 1902,``````the tent city needed a name. The miners wanted to call it after the local bird but no one could agreeon the spelling, so they opted for Chicken instead. The gift shop is full of ‘I got laid in Chicken’ mugsand ‘Cluck it’ T-shirts, the creeks still spit out sizeable nuggets now and again and you can tour aworking mine or even pan for gold. You can also cheat and hire a metal detector or just slipback to the gift shop and buy a bag of gold flakes instead.place, populated by oddballs It’s a weird and wonderfuland eccentrics, and ideal for kayaking down isolated rivers where your only company aremoose and bears. That is, if you``````don’t arrive during Chickenstock, the annual music festival, when almost 1,000 revellers descendon the village to listen to folk and bluegrass, and yes, do the chicken dance. With musicblaring, merry punters stumbling to the public outhouse under the midnight sun and women blastingtheir knickers from a cannon, there’s a strong whiWild West. Anything goes when ff of the oldyou’re this far from civilisation. By Etain O'Carroll