I spent many, many hours trying to plan this. Passing through Russia and China was relatively cheap, but my Russian classmates said I'd only have a three day visa. Aside from that, I always ran into the problem of how to cross over to Alaska by ship.
I went so far as to view YouTube videos of Trans-Siberian Railway cars. The trains were surprisingly good and I planned to take my time getting to the coast. If I could have done it, I would have had to start the semester late. But for a trip like this, it would have been worth it! :)
Maybe you could circumvent those hurdles by flying across. I know it will take some of the gloss off the road trip but as they say, half road trip is better than none
Only I am scared to death of flying. This was back in 2017 and I did fly home Germany>UK>US. Nine hours over the Atlantic. You never saw a guy gripping the armrests so hard! lol
lol. I've never flown in my life funny enough. I've always wanted to but the ticket price often changes my mind