North Pacific Passage to Japan

In September, 2025, we took a cruise from Vancouver to Tokyo with several stops along the way in Alaska and northern Japan. The cruise was a repositioning of the  ship Viking Orion heading to Australia for the season. The route we took, or something like it, is shown in the map below.

The qualification has to do with the route from Kodiak, Alaska, to Sapporo, Japan. On our cruise the captain sailed well into the Bering Sea and then along the the Russian Kamchatcka Peninsula (well away from Russian waters), and along the western shores of Hokkaido, west through the Tsugaru strait and then to Sapporo (Otaru, actually). He did this to avoid the even rougher seas that we would have experienced sailing further south.

After leaving Kodiak we were 8 days at sea, rather a long time, but it went by quickly. Every day there were activities aboard, including lectures by the Viking naturalists and historians, games, etc. that kept our interest.

After arriving in Japan, the cruise ended in Tokyo. We extended our trip by two more nights in Tokyo before flying back home. A wonderful trip!