Living in Pennsylvania, is it silly to think about college in Alaska?

right now i live in pittsburgh. i went to community college last year and just recently decided a major. i’m going to community college for another year and then i will need to transfer somewhere to get a bachelor’s degree (at least). i really want to go somewhere else though. i’ve been in pennsylvania for most of my life and i would like a change of pace.

i have narrowed down the places i’d ideally like to go to california (san francisco in particular), alaska, and south dakota. while san francisco would be my first choice, the cost of living there is a little too expensive for me right now unfortunately.

in south dakota, i have been considering Black Hills State University. It’s in a nice little town in the Black Hills and I have been there and I love the area but I feel like if I went there I might sort of miss being near a city.

So on to the real question. Alaska. I feel like it would be a great experience to go to Alaska. It’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to go, especially recently. Now clearly, it’s quite do-able, but it would be very expensive getting there, moving stuff, coming home for holidays, etc. I really want to do this, but I’m just a little nervous that I’ll regret choosing somewhere that is thousands of miles away from any of my family and friends. On the flip side though, that might make it more interesting.

By the way, the two colleges I would consider there would be U of Alaska Fairbanks and U of Alaska Anchorage.

I don’t know. I guess I’m just asking for any input on this. Have you been to Alaska? If you’ve been to Fairbanks and Anchorage, which did you prefer? I don’t know much about either. So any tidbit will help.

Or if you’ve gone to school very far away, share your experience?

I don’t want to wait too long to decide where I’m going.