Fairbanks

Fairbanks needs 2 days: heading out to watch the Northern Lights away from city lights, with a chance to see them on over 200 nights a year due to its location under the auroral oval, on one, and visiting the University of Alaska Museum of the North, with the state's most complete collection of Arctic art and science, on the other. September-March is the only season with enough darkness to see the aurora, though winter brings temperatures dropping below -30°C. It's expensive, like the rest of Alaska. It's one of the coldest inhabited cities in the United States and one of the best places on the planet to watch the Northern Lights due to its latitude and dry, clear-sky climate, as well as being the northern starting point of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.