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The California Pacific Coast highway offers a ton of scenery. Half of it is the ocean, the other half is constantly changing terrain. I've gone south from San Francisco and would like to try north sometime. I'm a stargazer, so heading into Big Sur at night was a treat with such low light pollution, though winding cliffaide roads aren't everyone's cup of tea, especially at night. Still, it provides a wide array of cliffside features.
Acadia in Maine, USA is gorgeous, but hard to reach if having to fly there. Just something unique about the pines and topography.
If you have a day near Denver, Colorado, USA, then Pike's Peak is an action-packed mountain experience. If you have a few days, I'd say Rocky Mountain National Park
Banff Canada is another wild mountainous area.
Influenced by Fairly Odd Parents, I saw no real reason to see the "big hole in the ground" called the Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA. I was quite wrong as it's tremendous. I even tried hiking down. I compared our wall color to what I could see across the valleys and realized we didn't even make a dent in the descent. Hours were spent. Remember to plan to spend twice as much time ascending. It's also a dark sky certified park and offers great stargazing from near the visitor center. The park doesn't close, which makes sense, as it takes 12-24 hours to cross.
I'd revisit any of these if I was in the area. I mostly seek out new places though.
I gotta say, north from San Francisco is pretty amazing. I did a road trip years ago, we were in a hurry for this section, so took the I-5 rather than the coast road. That was a shame for the LA to SF section of the trip, but my god when we got north of SF... Driving through Shasta National Park was perhaps the most beautiful scenery I've ever witnessed.
At some point we passed a lake beach that was truly unreal, the vibrant greens of the pines, the red clay of the shore, and rich blue of the water, the color was so intense, so saturated, it was like an alien world in the best possible way.
When you look to the east, you can see Mount Shasta. Now, being from New England, up in the Appalachians, I thought I knew what a mountain was, I was wrong. Shasta loomed over the terrain, a solitary giant, with a perfect cone shaped lenticular cloud overhead. The scale was truly awe inspiring.
Note: I didn't have to search for "lenticular cloud" to find that image, I just searched for "Mount Shasta".
Should you make this drive, up toward Portland, don't forget to stop in weed CA. It's an old logging town, probably not a lot to see, but there's a lovely, kitschy little diner, a great place to stop for lunch. The food was good, and you get the opportunity to pick up some merch like a shirt that says "I got high in weed CA".
thank you bro ! adding all of these to my list,,, Curious though, how's ur experience been as a stargazer in general, do you travel specifically for dark sky spots ??
I don't actually do trips for astro. I take advantage of darker skies where and when I can, as weather and the moon can spoil a night. But when travel takes me somewhere with darker skies, I go out of my way to see them if conditions permit.
No idea how to assess my experience as a stargazer. I like it. I keep doing it. Few things are as surreal as seeing the milky way band stretch from horizon to horizon. It feels tangible. The sky feels like a solid dome when the skies are clear. Nothing is moving, there's no frame of reference, and your eyes have no depth perception as they're focused and parallaxed to infinity. The uncertainty about whether that's a tiny cloud or a distant nebula fades as it just stays there, unmoving, unchanging, with an astronomical conclusion sinking in: that cloud is shifting faster than any human-made object, is larger than the sphere of human influence, is far older than the human species, and is further than we can ever travel by a factor of 10,000. And then it's possible to find the Andromeda galaxy by eye. A distinct, fuzzy ghost hanging in the sky, always at exactly the same reference to nearby stars.
Lightpollutionmap.info is the site I use to evaluate light pollution and travel options. I'll travel over an hour at night to get to "blue" skies (bortle class 2) from a hotel home base. It's hard to go further, as this is all at night when I should be sleeping. I usually spend 2 hours at the destination with good conditions.
Cleardarksky.com has been what I use for sky conditions. Your regular weather forecast icon tells you about thick clouds and the details give you predicted wind and humidity. This site gives block ratings by the hour to predict when the regular clouds, the hanging vapor, the humidity, the wind, and a bit of inference about convective heat flows will allow good "seeing". The smoke map is broken, unfortunately. If you've seen bright stars, particularly Sirius in the winter, twinkling, flickering, changing color, or even blinking out for a moment, that's part of what would be bad seeing. It doesn't mean I'll pass on the trip, but it can be the difference between the Andromeda Galaxy being naked eye or not.
I use a phone app Sky Safari. It's been the best UI and representation I've tested across a few apps. Good indication of sunlight as well, with full darkness being an hour or two after sunset depending on season/latitude. It's a good way to find objects.
I bring a camera to try to frame nightscapes. I bring 10x50 binoculars as they are relatively cheap (for astro), lightweight (enough), have minimals setup, and are bright. They don't have the zoom of a telescope, but they make up for it in ease of use and two-eye viewing.
Is that indicative of my experience with stargazing? I clearly love it