No fancy stores, no pretty sidewalks. Fairbanks is not a scenic town. The 'capital of cracked wind shields' is wild and surrounded by subarctic bush on all sides. Ice fog in winter and mosquitoes in summer. It's the heart of Alaska's great interior and the gateway to the 'last frontier'. No city in the North is closer to the edge than Fairbanks.
It's easy to love and hate Fairbanks at the same time. The city has a hospitable hominess that grows on a person, although downtown is plain and basic, with no remarkable sights or big attractions. The climate is tough. Fairbanks has one of the widest temperature ranges of any city in the world. It can be really cold, like -66 F in January (record low). And it can be quite warm, like 99 F in July (record high). Winters are long and dark. Summers are short but the days have over 20 hours of sunlight. Fairbanks is not close to any other city. And the wild frontier is still out there. Of course there's always Pioneer Park, the UAF campus, Creamer's Field, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline or the number one pastime in Fairbanks: shopping at Fred Meyer.