Trans-Alaska Pipeline Terminal


Across the inlet from town, Valdez’ ever-pumping heart once welcomed visitors, but since September 11, 2001, stricter security protocols have closed it to the public.

From the end of Dayville Rd you can still get a peek at the facility, including the storage tanks holding nine million barrels of oil apiece. But heed the dire warnings: plenty of septuagenarian RVers have been pulled over and interrogated for getting too close.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. Valdez Museum Annex

2.99 MILES

This annex of the Valdez Museum is dominated by a scale model of the Old Valdez township. Each home destroyed in the Good Friday Earthquake has been…

2. Civic Center

3.08 MILES

The Civic Center sits amid greenery with picnic tables, a small lake and the short Overlook Trail in close proximity.

3. Small-boat Harbor

3.18 MILES

Valdez’ harbor is a classic: raucous with gulls and eagles, reeking of fish guts, sea salt and creosote, and home to all manner of vessels. The benches…

4. Valdez Museum

3.28 MILES

This lovingly curated museum includes an ornate, steam-powered antique fire engine, a 19th-century saloon bar and the ceremonial first barrel of oil to…

5. Trail of the Whispering Giants

3.4 MILES

A huge 25ft-high rendering of an Alaska Native in Sitka spruce warily guards Prince William Sound College. The sculpture by Peter Wolf Toth is one in a…

6. Maxine & Jesse Whitney Museum

3.62 MILES

For a small town Valdez has several wonderful museums, including this one, the private collection of an American couple who settled in Alaska in 1947 and…

7. Old Valdez

4.54 MILES

Old Valdez is like a wilder, starker, less trammeled version of Italy's Pompeii. This is where the town stood before the devastating 1964 earthquake…

8. Columbia Glacier

20.85 MILES

This is the star glacial attraction in Prince William Sound – a large sea inlet named by British colonizers after a young English prince in the eighteenth…