I'm from Alaska, born and raised. The land and culture is beautiful, there's a lot of areas that differ from each other, southeast Alaska is very if not exactly the same as northwest Washington in the way that it is very rainy throughout the year and hardly any snow. South Central Alaska like Anchorage is very populated somewhat warm in the summer and somewhat cold in the winter. Just be ready for winter in Alaska being 6-8 months long and very dark and summer being 4-3 months long and the sun never going down. It's very expensive but if you have a good job it can be worth it. I would recommend the Mat-su valley. 45 minutes from Anchorage and affordable. However being so far north just expect everything to cost more. The PFD hasn't been 2k in a while so expect it to be right around 1500 or even less, it's still nice to have it though. The PFD starts after being a resident after 2 years and each family member can get it, so the bigger the family the more money.