Fairbanks was smaller and easier to get around than we thought. The visitor center got a good map for the area and very helpful volunteers to get us acquainted with the lesser known attractions. For example, there is an artist complex across the street. Downstairs are commercial art galleries while upstairs are artist’s studios. We ran into one of the artists who treated us to a tour of her work space.
Listed here are a few of the Fairbanks tourist attractions that we liked in particular. University of Alaska Museum was impressive, both the building and its exhibits. Allow at least half a day here. At the far end corner of the UA campus was the Large Animal Research Station where you can see the musk ox, reindeer, etc. We never thought that ox fur was so much softer than cashmere. Our favorite thing to do in Fairbanks was bird watching at the Creamer’s Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge. They have very good binoculars set up there for visitors. And finally, we went to the touristy Pioneer Park. We normally don’t like theme park type of attractions. However, we came here for the booth set up by the UA Geophysical Institute with educational info on seeing the aurora borealis (the northern lights). We also stumbled upon a pretty decent art exhibition on the third floor of the theater building in Pioneer Park.