Right Answers Only

Spring break is a favorite part of the semester for many college students. It marks the halfway point in the semester, and is a time where many students take a week to travel and get away from the stress of college life. Students at UAA often attempt to travel somewhere they deem more “sunny” and “pleasant” than Anchorage.

What students fail to realize is that Anchorage is all that — and more.

Not only is Anchorage sunny and pleasant in March, but there is no better place on planet Earth to spend your spring break.

Let’s start with the obvious — Anchorage is sunnier than anywhere else in the world. Popular spring break destinations like Cancun, Rio de Janeiro and Kona would have you believe that they have the sunniest skies. 

However, this is due to local governments investing billions of dollars into Sunny Sky Projectors that help boost tourism through artificial sunlight. 

Luckily for Alaska’s pitiful budget, Anchorage’s skies don’t need to rely on artificial sunlight for them to be a beautiful blue all throughout the spring. 

Another common reason people cite when leaving the state is the claim that Anchorage is cold during the spring. To that, I say it’s all in your head, and clothing is a placebo for how your body perceives temperature. 

Whenever people in Anchorage are out and about wearing puffy jackets, they think it’s cold. But when those same people are on a beach in Hawaii in swimsuits, they think it’s warm. 

This is because it’s not actually the weather that controls the temperature, but your mindset. Big Cold has manipulated the world’s minds into believing temperature is independent of your mind to keep people buying cold weather gear. 

If you stop letting clothing control the way your brain perceives temperature, every day will feel like a balmy 80 degrees — whether you’re in shorts or snow pants. 

There’s also a major misconception that, if you want to go tan on a beach over spring break, you need to leave Anchorage to do so. 

Along with the disproven arguments of temperature and weather that people often bring up, there is also the claim that Anchorage has no beaches to tan on. 

The reason? Big Sand.

Big Sand has planted the seed in the minds of many that a beach is required for tanning, and it has to be photogenic and covered in chairs and umbrellas. 

What Big Sand doesn’t want you to know is that mudflats are actually better places to tan than beaches. This is due to the differences between sand, which is rough and gets everywhere, and mud, which is not only soft but also a natural sunscreen. 

If you try to go out and tan on the mudflats, people will probably try and tell you that “it’s dangerous,” “you’ll get trapped out there” or “you’ll die.”  

These people all secretly tan out on the mudflats and know the benefits of tanning out there — they’re just trying to gatekeep it for themselves. 

So if someone tries to stop you, that’s even better indication that you’ll be nice and tan after a couple hours laying out on that patch of mudflat.

Yet another reason people say they need to leave Anchorage for spring break is because they suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. 

The existence of SAD has already been disproven in a previous article, and just like temperature, it’s all in your head. Simply decide that you’re happy in Anchorage and you will be happy.

The last claim that people often make is that they just can’t party in Anchorage like they can in other places for spring break. College students love huge parties, but for some reason believe that those simply don’t exist in Anchorage. 

People love to complain that everything in Anchorage is closed after 8 p.m. and there’s no way that a week-long rager could take place like in Ibiza. 

There are two words that describe these claims: skill issue.

Quite simply, throw a rager. If every college student in Anchorage goes on a week-long bender and throws parties, then more people will flock from out of state to get in on the action. 

Soon enough, Anchorage will be the party destination for spring break. The lack of parties in Anchorage simply comes from a lack of trying. If people started trying to throw parties and stopped leaving the state to party elsewhere, every spring break would be one huge party.

While many have long been fed lies that spring break is better spent elsewhere, there is no better place to spend it than Anchorage. Hopefully more people realize this in years to come, and Anchorage will finally take its rightful place as the top spring break destination in the world.