GARY BOWERMAN
Hello and welcome to the High-Yield Tourism Podcast. I’m Gary Bowerman. On this week’s show, I’ll be discussing the evolution of stargazing and dark sky tourism with Megan Eves, a global expert on nocturnal travel and tourism. So, let’s get started. This is High Yield Tourism.

GARY BOWERMAN
Hello, and thanks for listening in. Today, it’s my pleasure to welcome to the show Megan Eaves, a UK-based travel and science writer and an expert on global dark sky tourism. Megan is a delegate for Dark Sky International and the author of a forthcoming book called “Nightfaring – In Search of the Disappearing Darkness”. So Megan, thanks for coming on the show. How are you doing, and where are you today?

MEGAN EAVES
Thank you for having me. I’m glad to be here. I am doing well. I’m in London in the UK, which is where I live in between my travels, which are plentiful. So it’s always nice to be home. Great.

GARY BOWERMAN
So we’ll talk much more about your travels as we go forward. But let’s start, Megan, with a bit of a brief introduction. Tell us a bit more about what you do. And crucially, how did you become involved with dark sky tourism?

MEGAN EAVES
So I am a, by day, I’m a travel journalist. I’ve been a travel journalist for over 20 years, and I increasingly over the years got more interested in places that I could travel to see the night sky. Part of the reason for that is that I grew up, you can tell from my accent perhaps, that I did not grow up in the UK. I grew up in the southwest US. And out there where I grew up, and at the time that I grew up, we had very dark skies, very starry nights. And it was just something I took for granted. But now living in London for upwards of 15 years, I started to grow very, I don’t know, just kind of, I really felt like I needed to see the stars in the sky. And I missed it here in London. We can’t see the sky. We can’t really see the stars at all because we have so much light pollution here. And so I just started planning trips for myself to go find the night sky. And that led me into… an organization that was then called the International Dark Sky Association, now called Dark Sky International. And that led me down a very deep rabbit hole into the issue of light pollution and just in terms of enjoying the dark skies that I found, you know, and all of the kind of personal benefits and well -being that I’ve discovered through that. So I’ve just become very involved. in it as an advocate and also continue to write about it.

GARY BOWERMAN
Yeah, you set it up beautifully. So we’ve got plenty to unpack and talk about from there. But let’s start, Megan, with a kind of working definition of the segment that we’re going to talk about. We hear these terms, such as stargazing, dark sky tourism, and astrotourism, they’re kind of used interchangeably. Which ones do you use? Do they have different meanings? Where should we begin?

MEGAN EAVES
It’s a great question, and I think it’s one that the industry itself hasn’t yet to fully agree on. I personally have my own definitions about this, and, you know, these can be taken or left, but I like to sort of talk about this in a specific way because I think some of these terms have very particular meanings. I like to call dark sky tourism basically any kind of tourism that involves going out to enjoy the nocturnal environment, the natural night outside. And the reason I like that term is because it’s quite an umbrella term. It does say in the name sky, but it also encompasses all the creatures that come out at night. So you can involve nocturnal safari, night hiking, and all kinds of… adjacent activities under dark sky tourism now for me astrotourism it’s also built into the name it’s related to astronomy so often that can involve stargazing which is an activity that’s just looking at the night sky whether that’s with your eyes or with the telescope but astrotourism can also be done during the day because you can look at the sun through a telescope and you can also visit visitor centers such as astronomy centers planetariums or astronomical observatories often during the day so astrotourism and also places like meteorite craters and things like that so there’s a lot that encompasses within that but astrotourism is specifically about astronomy and the bodies of outer space and then dark sky tourism can kind of be an umbrella over that at least that’s my working term for it.

GARY BOWERMAN
Yeah, that’s a great distinction. I have to say that I came across what we’d probably call stargazing or astrotourism a few years ago, but it’s certainly here in Asia got a real kick, a real boost during the pandemic, particularly in places in China. I noticed that in some of the central provinces like Ningxia and Sichuan, you saw a lot of focus on stargazing during the pandemic. And now a lot of those destinations, those provinces are actually really promoting some of the parks that they have where you can go and do this. But then I was thinking about it and resonating with what you just said there is when we think about night sky tourism in some sense. We’re talking about the stars. We’re talking about solar and lunar eclipses, super moons, blood moons, that kind of thing. And a massive driver here at the moment in post -pandemic travel for Northern Europe is Aurora Borealis is going to see the Northern Lights. That’s a huge driver of travel from Asia Pacific at the moment. I’m just curious, have you seen the Northern Lights how many times?

MEGAN EAVES
I have seen them when I was younger as a kid. I haven’t seen them recently. And it’s unfortunate because it’s really good time right now to see the Aurora. Both you can see the Northern Lights in the Northern Hemisphere or the Aurora Australis, which are in the Southern Hemisphere from New Zealand and Southern Argentina and Chile. So I, yeah, when I was younger, we had some… solar activity in the 1980s, and I was able to see them growing up. But more recently, I saw them actually very faintly, amazingly, in downtown Pittsburgh in the US when I was back in the US for a visit. And that’s just speaking to the fact that right now we are at the very, very peak of a 14-year cycle that the sun goes through. I think it’s 14 years that the sun goes through of its kind of… peak activity and then the sun kind of gets more quiet for years and then it comes back and there’s a lot more solar flares and coronal mass ejections which are what cause the aurora. So it’s like that plasma coming across from the sun and interacting with Earth’s atmosphere that causes the aurora. So we get these cycles where we’ll have more aurora and I think that’s caused the uptick recently in people’s interest because simply we are having more aurora right now.

GARY BOWERMAN
Yeah, that’s interesting. And it’s obviously so photogenic, perfect for social media. Let’s begin our discussion really with talking about your upcoming book “Nightfaring – In Search of the Disappearing Darkness”, which sounds absolutely fascinating. The research for this book took you on a journey, a global journey from New Zealand to Uzbekistan and Argentina to Japan. What was the core thesis of the book and why did you write it and why now?

MEGAN EAVES
So the book is kind of the culmination of the last sort of eight to 10 years of my life and my work. It’s a travel memoir. So it’s a nonfiction sort of nature and travel memoir about my journeys. And it kind of was born out of my… As I began to research more about light pollution and the problems that it causes, I wanted to sort of know why and try to understand why we are… putting so much light into the world why we kind of have a sort of innate fear of darkness or do we have an innate fear so I had all these questions around our human relationship with the night as it is disappearing and so I just wanted to go and explore that long and deep connection that you know humans have been looking at the stars for tens of thousands of years we’ve been recording astronomical events like comets and meteor showers onto rock carvings for tens of thousands of years. And so I think it’s something that’s very innate almost to human beings that we look up at the sky and that we experience the night in this way.

GARY BOWERMAN
And so I’m curious, in terms of writing the book and putting together, as you say, a culmination of some of the work that you’ve done. Was going to these places, was it kind of a confirmation or did you just open up new ideas and new options and new sort of perspectives for you?

MEGAN EAVES
It was really about sort of connecting people across the world and seeing how we all experience night and darkness. I also, you know, in addition to just looking at the night sky, I was looking at how we’re experiencing darkness. So I even went to a monastery in Germany and spent four days in complete darkness on a retreat, just because I wanted to really experience what it felt like. And there’s nowhere really that you can go to be in that kind of dark. So it was that kind of exploration and sort of what about the night sky brings us together? What about the darkness makes us afraid? So it was sort of all of those things tied together. It certainly opened up new experiences for me and more questions. But it also gave me a great sense of hope because I visited with a lot of different dark sky advocates and people who know a lot about the night sky, indigenous leaders and people who are looking at this through different lenses. And it gave me a great deal of hope to feel that we have this kind of connection, all of us as humankind, to the night and to the cosmos.

GARY BOWERMAN
Yeah, that’s fascinating. And I like the way that you describe that because… Well, let’s sort of dive a little bit deeper into the global development of dark sky tourism. Now, in preparation for this conversation, I’ve been doing a lot of reading about this whole concept and it is fascinating. And from a superficial level, when you sort of see it on social media or when you hear tourism boards talking about it, you know, it’s about people getting out and seeing the world in darkness but as you said when you actually dive deeper you find out about advocates you find out about researchers astronomers scientists a lot of the people behind the science of this kind of tourism which is absolutely fascinating so from your perspective you mentioned you’ve been sort of involved in this for I think almost a decade when did dark sky tourism start to sort of really become a thing if that’s even possible and how is it developing right now

MEGAN EAVES
Yeah, so it’s a great question. And it’s still kind of, I feel like, in its infancy. I mean, obviously, people have been traveling to look at the sky for centuries. I mean, we had people traveling from the UK to New Zealand and the Pacific to look at the transit of Venus across the sun. This was in the 1600s. So we have had the history of travelers going to look at astronomical things for a very long time. But in terms of more kind of commercial tourism, mass tourism, obviously it’s, I would not call it a mass tourism segment at all. It’s very niche. And I think it’s only been growing up over the last sort of 10 years, really. Dark Sky International, which is the governing body that certifies these dark sky sanctuaries and parks. They go through a kind of almost UNESCO-like certification process where they are really put through a rigorous selection and they go through a lot of criteria. So, these places are doing a lot to protect their night skies and protect their nocturnal environments. And I think it’s the tourism aspect has grown up around that certification scheme. So as these locations have gotten their certifications, one of the requirements is a bit of public outreach. And to do that a great way is stargazing nights and things like that. So a lot of these locations, they tend to be remote because obviously there’s no light pollution. So they’re trying to draw visitors in in new ways. And the tourism has certainly grown up with that. And more recently, Dark Sky International has introduced a lodging certification, which is designed to cover accommodations essentially in and near Dark Sky parks and reserves. And so that’s really helping to boost. This this idea that, you know, you can be guaranteed to go to this particular hotel or lodge and find a starry sky. So it’s still growing. It’s very much a niche segment. I mean, so I was an editor at Lonely Planet for many years. And when I first started talking about this and looking into it, no one was talking about it. And I was pushing Lonely Planet to put it on at the time, the best in travel, which is like their annual top trends list. And we did it in 2019 and it was very early and no one understood it at that time. After the pandemic, as you pointed out earlier, the pandemic has certainly seen a rise in this. And I think that that corresponds to general rise in ecotourism and outdoors activities after lockdowns. And I think that that has helped a lot in terms of getting people’s interest. And then as well, we’ve just had, we just happen in this particular epoch of time to have a lot of cool astronomical things going on. Like we’ve had some big solar eclipses, we’re having the aurora right now. So it’s just kind of, you know, there’s an alchemy right now of a number of things coming together to really create interest in this particular type of tourism.

GARY BOWERMAN
Yeah, and alchemy. Great word. And I noticed, you mentioned that it’s still a niche segment. I would agree with that. But I did notice that it was actually referenced in Condé Nast Traveler and that global trends to watch in 2024, astrotourism was the number one. I didn’t realize that. I’ve just found out. Yeah, and Booking .com put it as their number one this year on their trends list for 2025.

MEGAN EAVES
Yeah, and Booking.com put it as their number one this year on their trends list for 2025. So it’s certainly now reaching more mainstream audiences, which is great. I’m, you know, very excited about that because we want people to get out and see the night and enjoy that.

GARY BOWERMAN
Which sets up the next question beautifully, Megan. How is the sort of mainstream tourism industry responding? I mean, are tourism boards, are destinations getting on board with this? How are they promoting dark sky tourism? And could they do it more effectively?

MEGAN EAVES
Yeah, well, you know, you’re seeing… It’s still very young, and you’re seeing a few destinations that have really kind of cottoned on to this. And they are the destinations that are also, you know, not surprisingly, they’re the ones that are also protecting their nights. They’re the ones that are really actively working to reduce light pollution and to introduce responsible infrastructure, lighting infrastructure that is less pollutive, that is better for the environment. So places like New Zealand and Wales are both really pushing on this quite hard. They’re both kind of trying to become a dark sky nation at this time and really working on it. New Zealand has obviously got great infrastructure for tourism. They’ve got a great commitment in general to ecotourism and outdoor tourism. So the ethos is there. New Zealand has incredible night skies and they’ve got some great projects. One of the tourism boards that has embraced this immensely is a regional tourism board in the US for the state of Utah. Utah is full of beautiful national parks and it’s quite sparsely populated. So there is not a lot of light pollution and Utah is really promoting their dark skies a lot. I think they probably have the best in terms of marketing. And there’s a few other destinations in the US that are really working hard. But again, it’s a niche, very niche segment. And part of the problem for tourism boards, especially national tourism boards, is that a lot of places don’t have dark skies. So London can’t promote that. This is not a destination to come to if you want to see the night sky. So those places that do have this as a natural asset are promoting it and hopefully taking on board the responsibility as well of protecting it. And then hopefully we’ll start to see destinations begin to restore some of their night skies so that introducing new light pollution legislation and better infrastructure.

GARY BOWERMAN
Yeah, so there’s two ways of looking at it, I guess, and particularly when you’re trying to promote a destination that has, New Zealand is a good example, plenty of natural space, a lot of open outdoor spaces, beautiful landscapes, environments, dark areas, and as you say, the infrastructure to support that. And that’s from the supply side. But when you look at the demand side, And it is a growing niche. I mean, who are stargazing tourists? I guess the way that it’s perceived that I’ve seen this in the industry is that obviously there are tour groups who are passionate stargazers who will go around the world, perhaps individually or with their friends and try and find the next best stargazing spot. You get young people who want to just do it as part of a trip. They want to book a tour and go and do wherever it is they are, a night trip. How does the industry or how does destinations get to grips with who stargazing tourists actually are?

MEGAN EAVES
Yeah, it’s a great question. I think it’s something we’re all still kind of grappling with and trying to understand. But I think one way of thinking about it is not just as stargazing tourists, but as the idea of nocturnal conservation. And we see really strongly in the industry right now this wonderful kind of marriage of low-impact mindful tourism to places that are doing strong nature conservation work. And that is, I think, the tourist who is also going to be interested in supporting dark skies. They may not necessarily care which one is Mars or Venus, but they may care about the idea that bad outdoor lighting impacts migratory birds. And they may care about the fact that light pollution in their home city is causing them to, you know, have sleep problems and potentially health problems. So I think that those are the travelers. They’re looking at it more from a well-being perspective, more from a conservation perspective. And of course, then you get that wonderful moment of sitting around a campfire or sitting outside at night and you see this sky full of stars. And part of the thing about this is a lot of people haven’t experienced that. And I’ve found that once you see it once and you go out there and really see the night sky and the milky way and the galaxy and you really experience what it feels like to be under the true sky you can’t go back after that you know it’s a bit like someone maybe that’s never seen snow or never seen the ocean and they see these things and it’s like whoa my life is now different because I’ve experienced what this is and a lot of people once they experience it they feel they want to invest more and protect it and then suddenly they find themselves every single year going for aurora hunting and it’s definitely something that becomes more of an addiction as you do it especially if you live in it like me or maybe yourself in a big city where you can’t see the night sky you have to travel to see it

GARY BOWERMAN
That’s a good point it’s a great description. I guess one of the challenges as we go forward is as this becomes more popular as it becomes more diversified and as it becomes more of a global kind of mainstream aspect of tourism is the challenges just proliferate, right? And one of those that I noticed that you’ve spoken out a few times about is the concept of star washing, which is a great term. I think you coined that one yourself. Tell us a bit.

MEGAN EAVES
Yeah, I did. I mean, it’s, you know, these portmanteaus, you know, I don’t want to like inflict that upon anybody. But the idea is, you know, it’s just a form of greenwashing, really. And the thing is that night sky tourism, dark sky tourism, stargazing, these are very visual things. You can also take incredibly beautiful photos with a camera that your eye cannot see. So in some cases, what you see on a marketing brochure is not what you see with your eyes when you get to the destination. And a lot of times, you know, I wouldn’t say a lot of times, but there is a risk of a destination or particularly a property or a tour company promoting, marketing stargazing without taking on the responsibility that they have to actually go about protecting that ecosystem. And it’s the same with any other kind of nature tourism or ecotourism. There’s going to be sort of bad actors who just want to market it this way without actually doing the work to invest in helping to protect those natural ecosystems. And it’s just the same with night sky tourism. So my hope is that we’ll see, you know, especially with Dark Sky’s new lodging certification, this is a great avenue, not too expensive for a hotel to invest in better lighting. It doesn’t take much. They can retrofit their lighting quite reasonably and pretty easily in most cases. And then suddenly they have this amazing value add and marketing tool as well that they can use. So that’s my hope is that people will start. Use it as a way of creating regenerative tourism. Because if you’re investing in better infrastructure and lighting that doesn’t harm the environment, you’re creating a kind of regenerative tourism too.

GARY BOWERMAN
You mentioned earlier two destinations, you said Wales and you said New Zealand, that are sort of really pushing this envelope quite hard and being quite progressive in these terms. Where else have you visited or have you worked that sort of stands out as innovative case studies? Maybe it’s not necessarily a country, maybe it’s a region or a park or some area where dark sky tourism is being done differently.

MEGAN EAVES
Great question. I mean, this is still so young, but there are several places that are really doing some cool, interesting things. So in New Zealand, I’ll call them out because they’re really cool. There’s a place called the Dark Sky Project on the South Island. And it’s the town of Tekapo, which is on a lake. So they have at night, they’ve got an astronomical observatory. It’s owned and run by one of the local Maori communities. They talk about indigenous astronomy there. So you’ve got this wonderful combination of New Zealand’s incredible outdoors and mountains and lakes. And then all of this sort of beautiful astronomy center. They’ve got a cafe with dark sky-themed food. So it’s like really a wonderful spot and they’re doing great stuff there. In terms of other spots, I would call out, for example, in Argentina, they’re developing what they’re calling a Ruta de las Estrellas, which is the route of the stars. And it’s a kind of ecotourism, a stargazing tourism, dark sky tourism corridor that connects up different dark sky locations throughout the country, which is quite cool. Because Argentina is such a vast and diverse country landscape-wise and food and everything, so you get this connection between all these different places. And then, of course, you’ve got places like La Palma in the Canary Islands, which are part of Spain. And they have actually had a dark sky law since 1988. They have a very dry climate and very high volcanic mountains. And they have an important scientific astronomical observatory on La Palma. And so they’ve developed their dark sky tourism around that. They have nocturnal hiking trails. You can visit the observatory, of course. And then they have a really nice scheme for certifying astro guides. So the local guiding system can kind of get this additional astro guiding certification, which is great. And then there’s some really cool kind of unique local operators. There’s a place here in the UK, an operator called Wild Intrigue, that does all sorts. And I like to call them out because this goes beyond stargazing. But they do all these wonderful nocturnal wildlife safaris. And you wouldn’t think of that in the UK necessarily, but you can do a bat and pizza night. They’ll take you on sort of nightjar walks to listen out for nightjar birds. And they do all kinds of incredible… evening, nighttime wildlife experiences, which is just fantastic. And that really gets to my point that dark sky tourism can be more than just stargazing. And I think that that’s important for anybody that wants to develop this as an add-on or a value add or a product is to think beyond stargazing. Because I’m going to tell you now, travelers love to look at the sky, but they have the attention span of people who scroll the internet. So you can look at the sky for 15 minutes with people. Often they don’t want to go beyond that. Or maybe they want to hang out and have a glass of wine or a drink or a cup of tea by the fire and look at the sky that way. But doing active science at night with people is great and they will reach a point. So you want to make sure that you’re thinking about how diverse you can make it. What does your local natural environment have in it that may be different from elsewhere? You know, you might have fireflies, which are highly threatened by light pollution. You might have glow worms. You might have all kinds of wildlife and mammals to think about as well. So those are some ideas.

GARY BOWERMAN
Some great case studies there and some great concepts as well. And I think you’ve probably just given me another reason to go back to Argentina, which is certainly one of my favorite countries in the world. Before we wrap up, Megan, I guess… Where does the debate go next? I mean, I would imagine that this concept is developing, it’s progressing, as you say, it’s diversifying as well. Interest is only going to grow. What do you think will be some of the key issues that we’ll be talking about over the next 12 months?

MEGAN EAVES
I think the one and main issue with this is always going to be about responsible lighting and ensuring that in the bid or even rush to market, your product or your, your property that you aren’t also contributing to the problem of the loss of night. And so the first step for anybody who wants to get involved, attract visitors with this is to make sure that you’re part of the solution to light pollution first and then market it. And I think that that is going to be the one and only challenge. to work out. We have lots of solutions in terms of lighting, better lighting, infrastructure. You just have to implement them. So it’s about getting that little bit of investment into, you know, shielded light fixtures and warmer color tone lights and turning lights off when they’re not being used, making sure they’re not spraying light out into the environment. Those are very simple, easy fixes that anybody can do, whether it’s at your hotel property or even at your home.

GARY BOWERMAN
Yeah, those are fascinating. And on a personal basis, Megan, where’s on your bucket list? Where haven’t you been to where you’d like to see more of nocturnal tourism?

MEGAN EAVES
Well, my bucket list, the top of my bucket list for a long, long time has been Namibia. Namibia has one of the only dark sky reserves. I think it’s currently the only dark sky reserve on the continent of Africa. And I’m going in a few weeks time now for the first time. So I’m extremely excited about that. And I’ll be going to Norway after that. And other places, Chile. I mean, Chile is an astronomical kind of hub. We have so many amazing telescopes and dark sky sanctuary there. And they have a national dark sky law. And I still haven’t been. So Chile will be one of the next places that I really want to see.

GARY BOWERMAN
Namibia, Norway, and Chile. I wish I had your job, Megan.

MEGAN EAVES
Well, you’re in Kuala Lumpur, which is a fantastic city.

GARY BOWERMAN
That’s very true. I’m very lucky. So just before we wrap up, Megan, tell us a bit more about your book. When is it coming out and how can we pre -order? How can we find it?

MEGAN EAVES
Great. Thank you. So Nightfaring will be released in the UK on January 22nd, 2026, and then in the US and Canada on March 31st. You can pre-order it online through… bookshops in the UK, US, or Canada, I like to recommend bookshop.org because they’re a good organization and good for local bookshops. So try to order through your local store or online through bookshop.org if you can.

GARY BOWERMAN
And if we want to follow your travels, I understand you just started a new Substack. How can we find out more about your trip to Namibia, for example?

MEGAN EAVES
Ah, yes, I will definitely cover that. So you can find my Substack. It’s Nightfall and Elsewhere on Substack. You can follow me on Instagram, Blue Sky, LinkedIn. Just look up Megan Eves and you’ll find me without a doubt.

GARY BOWERMAN
Megan, it’s been fascinating to talk to. I’ve really enjoyed this. I think there’s so much more we could have talked about. Maybe in 12 months time, we can catch up with your travels that you’ve done in between and learn a little bit more about a segment that I think will just continue to change and diversify. And as you said, some of these issues will become crystallized as we go forward. But thanks very much for your time and your insights.

MEGAN EAVES
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

GARY BOWERMAN
So that’s a wrap for this edition of the High Yield Tourism podcast. My thanks to Megan for thoughtful insights on this evolving era of dark sky tourism worldwide. You can join the conversation on our LinkedIn page at High Yield Tourism, and we’ll be back soon to talk more high yield tourism around the world. See you next time.