I'm not sure what the difference is between a dark sky park and a dark sky preserve, but there are plenty of the former. As the article notes, there are already many International Dark Sky Parks, with nearly 40 in the U.S. Here's a list: <a href="http://www.darksky.org/idsp/parks/" rel="nofollow">http://www.darksky.org/idsp/parks/</a><p>I've been to the Headlands park in Michigan; it's a <i>beautiful</i> location on the north-west corner of the lower peninsula, right on the lakeshore. The guest house is actually shockingly cheap ($300) for a beach-front rental space; you'd be hard-pressed to find an AirBNB with similar features for less - it would make a great company retreat for 10-20 people.
Growing up in rural Australia, I know about this all to well.<p>We would often host Japanese exchange students and communities elders. I have the distinct memory of one of the ~60 year old Japanese men spending night after night outside, staring at the sky.<p>Later it was explained - he had never seen stars in his life.
Question:
I live in San Francisco and I have recently become pretty obsessed with going to a place like this. I want to go somewhere extremely dark where I can see the sky in a form that's similar to what someone might have seen before the invention of electric lights.<p>Does anyone know a good place in America like that? Ideally it would have other good natural features to entertain me during the day.<p>I just can't help but thinking that looking up at the sky a thousand years ago must have been absolutely awe inspiring. A civilization without artificial light would look up and see a dazzling display of starlight. it's no wonder they all believed there was a supreme power above them.
Awesome. It's hard to imagine that only a couple years ago we had dark skies everywhere. As an off and on hobby astronomer I'm very happy to see this trend of dark sky consciousness and preservation.
Born and raised in Idaho, and took the Milky Way and constellations for granted. When I was a kid, my dad and I used to pick out all 7 stars in the Pleiades (7 sisters).<p>Then I went to college in Illinois at UIUC from 95-99. On the best nights in the midwest, I could barely make out Jupiter, due to both smog and light pollution.<p>So I just want to throw in my vote that I hope this happens.<p>Also on a national level, I'd like to see a movement towards shrouded street lighting, since everything is being retrofitted for high efficiency and getting brighter. Like maybe we could have a process to report bright street lamps and prioritize them to get shrouded.
If you don't restrict "America" to the USA, this would probably count as an earlier initiative for creating a true reserve.
<a href="http://ricemm.org/en/" rel="nofollow">http://ricemm.org/en/</a>
This already exists in Michigan: <a href="http://www.midarkskypark.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.midarkskypark.org/</a>