Move To Alaska and You’ll Read More
This is a guest post from Anna Cramer. Born in Alaska, raised in Missouri, Anna made her way back to The Last Frontier nine years ago with husband and cats in tow. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and Archaeology with an emphasis in Native American Studies from Missouri State University. Anna is an amateur photographer and professional daydreamer with a perpetual case of wanderlust, likely exacerbated by a healthy reading habit. A few of her favorite things aside from reading and writing: cats, K-pop, hip hop, walking in the woods, the ocean, red wine, a good wood burning fire, coffee, and being inspired.
Move to Alaska and you’ll read more…a lot more.
You’ll likely develop a significant caffeine addiction but that’s another story.
Forget the lounge chair, palm trees and sunshine. Juneau, Alaska is a true reader’s paradise. When it comes to the dreamiest of reading destinations there are three key ingredients that make this town the creme de la creme of serious reading:
The Isolation
Juneau is a small city in Southeast Alaska accessible only by air or sea. That’s right, you cannot drive here. Sure, you can get close, but at some point the rugged terrain will decide, “that’s close enough.” Juneau is a town fortified by mountains, glacial ice and the sea so you can catch a ferry, hop on a plane, question your sanity, or a combination of any of the three. The remoteness of Juneau, as with most of Alaska’s towns, is just the right amount of removed from the rest of the world for you to further develop your “healthy” reading habit. Say buh-bye to the unexpected pop-ins, stop-bys, and uninvited guests. Aunt Becky is going to have to work to get up here.
The Weather
It rains, it Rains, and it RAINS! “Like Seattle,” you ask? Adorable. Juneau is located in the Tongass National Forest, a temperate (you guessed it) rainforest. Our incessant rain is the perfect excuse to stay inside, read and not feel completely guilty about it. We get measurable precipitation 222 days a year. Sometimes it snows.
The Darkness
I know, I know, there is nothing quite like finding a sun soaked spot on your bed or couch and squeezing in next to your fur baby with your next TBR. Here, it’s likely to be cloudy, overcast, or just straight up dark (see aforementioned paragraph on weather). However, the darkness is actually a great thing for readers as we embrace the Hygge lifestyle of the Danes to the fullest. We wrap up in front of our stoves, be they pellet, wood burning, or oil. with a blanket, hot beverage, and a glass of wine, and lose ourselves in our next read…Lonely Planet Hawaii, let’s do this.
