The darkest skies on earth, and the nights you can book under them.
Which Teide tour puts a telescope on the Milky Way and which just drives you up for the sunset. What a desert camp night outside Dubai costs once dinner is in. Whether Lake Tekapo or the Atacama suits the month you are travelling.
Four nights to start a trip with
- 01
TenerifeTeide National Park Sunset & Stargazing TourAbove the cloud layer on Teide, where the telescopes come out after the sunset crowd leaves.from $47 - 02
DubaiDubai Red Dunes ATV, Camels, Stargazing & 5* BBQ Al Khayma CampRed dunes, a camel, then a camp with the lamps down and dinner already cooking.from $88 - 03
New ZealandAlpine Stargazing Experience with a GuideA guide, a scope and the Southern Cross over Lake Tekapo, in the world's largest dark sky reserve.from $59 - 04
UtahEast Zion Dark Sky Stargazing TourEast Zion after the park empties, for the price of a cinema ticket and a hot chocolate.from $22
Six places that build a whole night around stargazing
A volcano summit above the cloud, desert camps a long way from any streetlight, and one alpine lake with a working observatory on the hill above it.
Stargazing in the USA is a Colorado Plateau story
All USA stargazing
Small Group Big Island Twilight Volcano and Stargazing Tour
Four states share the darkest air in the lower 48, and the good operators there work to red light and a proper scope rather than a laser pointer and a bench. Pick the landscape you want behind the stars.
Sedona
Sandstone silhouettes, and the only town on this list that talks about UFOs with a straight face.
from $89 a head
Moab
Delicate Arch and the Windows framed against the galactic core, usually with a camera on a tripod.
from $175 a head
Death Valley
Two hours out of Las Vegas and 86 metres below sea level, with nothing lit for 50 miles.
from $249 a head
Desert stargazing nights come with the meal built in
From Hurghada to Doha the shape is the same: out at sunset, an hour of dunes, then a camp with lamps low, bread off the fire and a guide naming what is overhead. The differences are the drive, the crowd size and whether a telescope actually appears.
Stargazing through a research telescope, not a hire-shop one
Greenwich, Teide, Mount John, Roque de los Muchachos. A handful of working observatories open their doors after dark, and a few more will put you behind a 16-inch scope with an astronomer at your shoulder. When cloud wins, a planetarium dome is the honest fallback.
- 1Teide by Night: Sunset & Stargazing with Telescopes Experiencefrom $107
- 2Royal Observatory Greenwich & Prime Meridian Entrance Ticketfrom $32
- 3Mount Teide Observatory Guided Tourfrom $25
Stargazing prices run from a planetarium seat to a private astronomer
Every figure below is per head and comes off the live listings, so it moves when the operators move.
A planetarium ticket, a guided hour with a shared scope, or a desert combo where the stars are the last item on a long evening.
The standard shape: pickup, a dark site, two or three hours, a guide who knows the sky and usually something hot to drink.
Small groups, astrophotography with your images sent on afterwards, summit access, or a whole night booked for your party alone.
The moon decides more about a stargazing night than the guide does
A full moon washes out everything faint, so the Milky Way weeks are the ones either side of new moon. After that it is cloud, then altitude: Teide and Mauna Kea sit above the weather but they are cold enough to need a proper coat in August. Most tours run late and finish after midnight, and almost all of them cancel for cloud rather than run a bad night.
Stargazing by place
The newest stargazing reviews
Open the whole catalogue of nights →
Vincentia: Jervis Bay Beach Stargazing with an Expert
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Blue Mountains: Stargazing with a Telescope and Astronomer
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Twizel: Stargazing Tour with an Astronomer and Telescope
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Twizel Stargazing Experience with a Guide (Carbon Positive)
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Klein Karoo “High 5” Stargazing Experience in Oudtshoorn
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Private Stargazing at Star Safari near Martinborough
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Moonlight Experience and Stargazing close to Victoria Falls
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