Dark Sky Camping

Just get away from where people live, find some elevation and a dry climate. That includes about half the West. Dark sky sites are everywhere. My back yard is really good in Nevada at 5,000 feet.

We camped at The Goosenecks SP in southern Utah and had magnificent dark sky camping.

The people in the RV next to us complained that there were clouds obscuring the stars. I smiled and went into my MH and got binoculars for them to better see the "clouds", which actually was the Milky Way. They were stunned, and had never seen it before.

Virginia has a couple of spots from the list.
Staunton River State Park Host a couple of Dark Sky events monthly. A local astronomy club from Wake Forest University host a couple of events a year here.
State park website.

The large field between the park office and the pool are frequently used for gatherings and the park shuts down the two streetlights a couple hundred yards away for viewing sessions. Otherwise, no towns for about 15 miles.


As well as James River State park.

An estimated 80 percent of Americans have never seen the Milky Way.

Which is a shame. Used to be able to see it from our house in north texas. No longer. Growth has over powered it. Can still see it on really clear nights in the Texas Hill Country, but not nearly as well as 15-20 years ago.

The Big South Fork recreation area in TN/KY might fit the bill. We camped there at Bandy Creek campground, which has hookups.

I love Craters of the Moon National Monument for its "dark sky." Every year they have a rather large assembly of professional and amature astronomers set up an assortment of telescopes for visitors to view. My kids stayed up until 3:00 am going from telescope to telescope looking at stars that they would never have seen anywhere else. 20 years later they still talk about it.

clicked on one of the links that listed 10 dark sky camping sites ... I noticed not 1 listed in Wyoming.

Is that because 99.9% of Wyoming is dark sky? :)

There's a DarkSky™ park a few hours from me, I don't know how it got on that list, probably bribes?

Reason I think that, is there's a H U G E suspension bridge visible from the park that's lit up like an airport runway all night long, casting terrible light pollution into the sky and surroundings.

So, my advice - don't worry about finding a DarkSky™ listed park. Use a map and find a remote site that's also close to things you would like to do during the day time.

Big things to consider, where is the closest mega city, and the closest mega airport?

Mega cities will destroy the horizon, I don't think a truly dark horizon exists anywhere in the lower 48 anymore. The more mega, the higher up from the horizon they destroy.

Mega airports, why? When you're camping in a very remote location it is so quiet that you actually hear the noise from the jets even though they're a long ways away. It sounds quite loud surprisingly, since your brain has no reference to scale the volume.