Start from 30 curated places around Homer, AK, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Two Sisters Bakery
A beloved Old Town institution wedged into a small space on Bunnell Avenue, known for its cardamom buns, chocolate bread, and kimchi pork buns — things you won't find anywhere else on the Kenai Peninsula. Lines form before the door opens and the best stuff sells out fast, so treat it as a morning mission rather than a casual stop.
Fat Olives Restaurant
A wood-fired pizza and Italian kitchen operating out of a converted garage on Ohlson Lane — not the obvious dining destination until you know that locals consider this the best dinner in Homer. The pizza crust has real char, the wine list prices everything at the same flat rate per bottle, and Homer brewery beers rotate on tap. Go early or expect a wait.
Trails & outdoors
Homer Spit Trail
A paved 8.6-mile path running the full length of the Homer Spit on the bay-facing side, flat and open with uninterrupted views of Kachemak Bay and the Kenai Mountains. This is the walk that most Homer visitors do without knowing it — just following the shoreline from the top of the Spit all the way to the lighthouse. It's also the best cycling route in Homer if you can borrow or rent a bike.
Bishop's Beach Trail
An easy shoreline walk along the wide pebble beach below the Old Town bluffs, with miles of open beach for wandering, tide pool hunting, and wildlife watching. No elevation, no technical difficulty — just the most accessible stretch of Kachemak Bay shoreline in town, with bald eagles overhead and the chance of spotting beluga whales on almost any walk.
Things to do
Bunnell Street Gallery
Homer's most respected contemporary art gallery, occupying a historic building on West Bunnell in Old Town and showing rotating exhibitions of Alaskan fine art — paintings, sculpture, ceramics, fiber work, and photography — by artists who actually live here. Monthly show openings on the first Friday of each month draw the local arts community and are the best free event in Homer.
Ptarmigan Arts
Homer's only artist-run cooperative gallery on Pioneer Avenue, with 38 member artists each managing their own space within the larger room. The result is a dense, browsable collection of ceramics, woodwork, jewelry, paintings, fiber arts, and glass — all by working Alaskan artists who earn far more from sales here than at a consignment gallery. Nothing here came from a warehouse.
Landmarks & sights
Homer Spit
A 4.5-mile gravel bar jutting into Kachemak Bay — the geographic anchor of Homer and unlike any other place in Alaska. The Spit holds the boat harbor, campgrounds, fish canneries, a lighthouse bar, food vendors, kayak outfitters, and the departure point for water taxis to Kachemak Bay State Park. Walking the length of it at sunset, with mountains across the water reflecting in the bay, is the one experience that's completely free and completely irreplaceable.
Bishop's Beach
A wide pebble-and-sand beach directly below the Old Town bluffs, stretching several miles along the base of the cliffs and giving unobstructed views across Kachemak Bay toward the glaciated Kenai Mountains. Locals walk it daily for whale watching, eagle spotting, and tide pool exploration — it's the un-touristed beach Homer residents actually use.