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That's what we did. We fly out to Little Rock Saturday before and fly home Saturday afterwards. Booked flights months ago, as well as the rental car. Booked the timeshare in Fairfield Bay 9 months ago and there was only one unit left. Glad I got up at midnight to do it.
I decided on a tour so I wouldn't have to deal with possible hotel cancellations (plus it mans interesting things to do before the eclipse, and no need for a rental car). I leave on March 31, and fly back home on April 9.
Care to share what tour? I had no idea there was even such a thing. I just knew we wanted to go, because my husband got to go to a friend's house in Nashville and experience it, while I had to stay back home because I was getting unlimited overtime for a big project. This year I already told my boss he got it out of me last time, but I'm not doing it again this year! LOL
The coolest would be the airborne eclipse charter a jet flight to follow the path.... expensive but it guarantees you'd see it in full impact by being above the clouds. Fun reading!
Care to share what tour? I had no idea there was even such a thing.
Sure! I am going on this one: https://skyandtelescope.org/astronom...pse-tour-2024/ I learned too late that they are also doing a tour based in Mazatlán, Mexico, and a Mexican eclipse cruise departing out of San Diego (both offer a better chance of clear skies than the tour I am taking).
There are a lot of companies which offer astronomy-oriented tours, including solar eclipse tours. Off the top of my head, I can name Sky & Telescope Magazine, Astronomy Magazine, MelitaTrips, Spears Travel (in Tulsa, OK - you have to specifically Google their astronomy tours, they are easy to miss on their website), Astro Trails, and New Scientist Magazine.
There are some great total solar eclipses coming up in the next few years outside of the US:
2026: Greenland, Iceland, and Spain
2027: Spain at the tip of Gibraltar, North Africa, and Egypt, with the longest duration of totality at 6 1/2 minutes directly over Luxor, Egypt
2028: Australia and New Zealand, the eclipse cuts right over the middle of Australia and then over the North Island of New Zealand
2030: Southern Africa, with the capital of Namibia, Windhoek, directly on the path.
So if you like to travel, start planning some eclipse trips! Many companies will be offering tours for these; the Astro Trails website shows especially good graphics for the paths of totality (https://www.astro-trails.com/)
You can also go on tours with many of these companies that let you see the aurora, the southern hemisphere sky, tour major observatories, and visit sites important in the history of astronomy. Happy astronomy traveling!
You can also go on tours with many of these companies that let you see the aurora, the southern hemisphere sky, tour major observatories, and visit sites important in the history of astronomy. Happy astronomy traveling!
Thanks for all this! We'd have enjoyed the tour that includes NASA's Johnson Space Center. We've been to two (Kennedy and Marshall).
Another bucket list item for us is to see the aurora borealis, but we also want to go to Alaska, so I think we are going to try to make those happen together.
It should be, but plenty of people think it's fair... I'm not a fan of artificially-raised prices, but yay capitalism I guess. If someone is willing to pay it, they'll keep doing it.
(The part that's really crappy is the hotels who are booking at reasonable prices, then later canceling the reservation and telling the person they can rebook... at the much-higher cost. At least the ones who started out with ridiculous prices from the get-go were honest about it. My hotel hasn't done it yet, but I'm just waiting because I'm sure there's no way they won't.)
I thought price gouging was illegal. If not, it should be
It's only illegal during a state emergency or disaster, and only in certain states.
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Hotels charge 10 times normal for solar eclipse on April 8
