Where our facts come from

Certifications and state designations

A place appears here only if it is certified by DarkSky International or designated by a state authority; every page says which. We check each certified place against the official registry and stamp the date: ✓ Certification verified Sep 2026. We check each state-designated place against the designating authority's own published source (a statute, an agency program page, or an official order), and its page names and links that authority: ✓ Designation verified Sep 2026. If a certification or designation lapses, the page says so.

Darkness ratings

"Exceptional," "Very dark," and similar ratings are our plain-language translation of sky-brightness estimates from published satellite data (the National Park Service's light pollution model, built on NASA VIIRS satellite measurements). They are estimates, and we label them that way. Where a park publishes its own measured reading, the measurement wins and we cite it. The technical class (Bortle scale) is always shown for those who want it.

Darkness estimates computed from the National Park Service Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division sALR Light Pollution Model 2024 (public domain). This product was made utilizing VIIRS Nighttime Lights (VNL) data produced by the Earth Observation Group, Payne Institute for Public Policy, Colorado School of Mines.

Viewing windows

Moon phases, moonless windows, and meteor dates are computed from standard astronomical algorithms for each place's coordinates. This is arithmetic, not opinion; anyone can check it. Weather is not included, so always check a forecast before you drive.

Each place page shows the next three stretches of moonless evenings, with the rest of the coming year one tap away, and the trip calendar runs a year ahead. We recompute every date at the start of each month. A night drops off the page once it has passed, so the first window you see is always one still ahead or under way.

Food and town

We name a town only if it has at least 250 people (U.S. Census Bureau estimates) and at least one supermarket or grocery store on OpenStreetMap. If none is within about 50 miles, the page says so and names the nearest small community with a grocery store or somewhere to eat, plus the nearest groceries, store, and gas. Every page also names the nearest places to eat on the map, in a town or not; the map can't tell us whether they're open. Where a park's own pages name more than one entrance, we do this from each entrance, main entrance first, and measure stays to the nearest one. Distances are straight lines, so the drive is longer; we don't show drive times.

Town, grocery, gas, and restaurant data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License. Town populations and boundaries from the U.S. Census Bureau (public domain).

Stays

Hosts list their own stays, and we never copy listings, photos, or reviews from booking platforms. To give every place a few options from the start, we also add stays from lodgings' own websites, always linked straight to them. If one of those is yours, you can update or claim it from its card. Booking happens on the host's page, and we hold no payment details. Featured stays pay for placement; the badge says so, and two featured slots per place is the maximum, ever.

Night sky tours

We list a tour only if it is stargazing or astronomy, an observatory night program, a night or astrophotography workshop, night wildlife, or a campfire evening that includes stargazing. It must start within about 60 minutes' drive of the place or one of its entrances, and its listing must show that it runs after dark. We leave out full-moon walks and meditations, UFO tours, dinner shows, sound baths, ghost tours, generic night tours, sunset-only tours, and day trips from a distant hub. We choose each tour by hand, and its drive time is approximate. A tour's rating and reviews are on the booking platform's page, where they are current.

For night sky tours we link to booking platforms and show a tour's name and operator, with the date we checked. We earn a commission if you book. We never copy their reviews or photos.

Your data

The trip calendar sign-up and the "Email me before the next dark window" form keep your email address, the places you choose, the page you signed up on, and when. Nothing is sent until you confirm: we email you a link, and you're added only once you open it and press Confirm, so nobody can sign up an address that isn't theirs. If you don't confirm, the sign-up lapses.

Once you confirm, we use your address only for the Dark Sky Trip Calendar: about one email a month, a few days before each dark window, with the dates for the places you chose. Every email has a one-click unsubscribe link, and your mail app's own Unsubscribe button works too. After you unsubscribe, we email you nothing more. We log the emails we send by a one-way fingerprint of your address, never the address itself.

The list-your-stay form, the form for updating or claiming a stay we list, and the Featured waitlist keep only what they ask for and when you sent it, and your email is never shown on the site. A waitlist email is used only to tell you about a Featured slot at that place. Featured payments happen on Stripe's checkout page, so we never see or store your card.

To keep out bots, every form uses Cloudflare Turnstile, which checks in your browser that a person is sending it and tells us only whether it passed. That check needs JavaScript, so the forms do too. We also keep a hashed marker of your connection for about an hour to limit repeat sends, never your IP address. Nothing is sold or shared.

If you send a photo with a listing, we keep it privately while we review the listing, with the rights statement you agreed to. If we publish it, we use a resized copy without its camera and location details and delete your original; if we don't, we delete it.

Corrections

Found something wrong? Tell us and we'll fix it and re-stamp the date. The correction note stays on the page.