I want to move to alaska. I have 7 years of school left first.What would be the best place to live in alaska?

any thoughts about fairbanks, anchorage, juneau or other cities. also what is life like in alaska. what is there to do. give me any information you possibly can on life in alaska. best answer gets 10 points

Public Comments

1. It totally depends on you, Anchorage is the center of everything, more jobs and the center of all activity, (malls, main airport, etc.) If your looking at the best city there, then Anchorage is where you wanna be. I lived there for 13 years and it's a very nice small city. Juneau is the capital of Alaska but it's very small and not quite developed yet (No malls and hardly any place to shop). Fairbanks on the other hand is 300+ miles away from Anchorage, I call it the extreme, reason is that they get the hottest summer (around 90's sometimes low 100's dry, and the coldest winter, I'm talking about below 0 ) and like Juneau very few places to shop ( hint: WalMart just opened there a couple years ago ...wink). Walmart and Sam's club is their main shopping center. During winter time it gets dark around 5pm and sun doesn't shine until 9am, and its the opposite during summertime, It may be 10pm at night but it still seems like 3 or 4 in the afternoon. But anywhere you stay in Alaska, if you like outdoors like hiking and fishing or skiing, you sure will love it there.
2. I only spent 5 months in Alaska last year, 2 of that in Anchorage, but I learned a lot about Alaska in that time. By the time you are through with school, Alaska may be completely different that it is now. The oil companies may try a power play and slow the flow in oil, in the pipeline to a trickle. That would change life as everyone knows it in Alaska. The reason I say this is, Alaska gets 80% of it's tax income from the oil revenue. They do have a permanent fund, monies invested from oil, to sustain Alaska for when the oil runs out. Anchorage is the place to work. If you are into labor, diesel techs make $35 per hour, as do electricians. Most of the trades are union, including truck drivers. Eagle River, just out of Anchorage, is the place to live. Forget Wal Mart in Alaska, they don't have Super Stores. Fred Myers is the place to shop. Much better than any Wal Mart Super Stores in the Lower 48. Also, Safeway is a good grocery store. The fishing is fantastic, during their very short fisning season. Trying to keep the Salmon population up, the fishing season doesn't start until enough Salmon pass upriver to spawn. Cost of living is fairly high and will only get higher, as the rest of the US will. At the moment, very few towns have sales tax, that may change at any moment. As cities and the state needs more revenue, taxes could be applied. There is not a 99 cent menu at Wendys or McDonalds either. In 2006 they did have a $1.49 menu. Workers were paid a hourly wage of $7.50. That can vary from store to store. If you move there, and everything is then as it is now, you will enjoy your life as most Alaskans now do. As we were told while we were there, stay away from Muldoon Road and Mountain View. These two areas, last year were high crime areas, mostly gang activity. Enjoy yourself.
3. I live here. Go for Soldotna man, great schools,shopping but small town kinda plus your in the greatest playground in Alaska for fishing, hiking,climbing,kayaking, rafting, hunting it all there man. Oh yea everywhere has 99 Cent menus the others are wrong. get on my fan list and I will help ya out big time.