I consider myself a U.S. geography nerd, and I too have never heard of Anacortes. Fortunately I knew all the others, so I was able to get it via process of elimination.
It has been added by Quizmaster while featuring the quiz to change some cities that has homonyms in the US. I trust Quizmaster for adding relevant US cities more than me as I'm not from there
Absolutely wild how just 30 miles south of Ames, Iowa is the town of Altoona, Iowa. I clicked Altoona there because I'm familiar with Adventureland, an amusement park in Altoona
Altoona, IA is a suburb of Des Moines. On the provided map, it is essentially in the same location marked for Ames (they're only about a 45 minute drive apart). Choosing Iowa for Altoona should be counted as correct.
There aren’t a lot of viable cities in the region, but if they wanted to replace it with a more well-known one, I would suggest Astoria.
Astoria is already on like 50 quizzes. Why not add a city that is much more rarely featured (and with a higher population than Astoria to boot).
Variety is the spice of life. Isn't it better to learn things than to just rehash all the same things you already know?