As you make your 2017 travel plans, don’t forget about a rare event happening next year: a total eclipse of the sun visible across a wide section of the United States. It’s going to be on August 21, 2017 in late morning / early afternoon, and that’s a Monday, so if you’re a nerd like me and are excited about this, you’ll want to allot a vacation day for it. And yes, you should be excited about this: it’s the first total eclipse visible in the contiguous states since 1979!
Here’s a map of the path of the eclipse, courtesy of GreatAmericanEclipse.org:
The only eclipse I can remember being in the vicinity of occurred when I was in fourth grade. As I recall it got really dark outside and I really wanted to go outside and experience it except that day was a school day and my school apparently wasn’t into the whole getting-kids-excited-about-science thing. I am still bitter about missing out on that eclipse and that’s why I’m posting about it now.
But fortunately for me I’m about an hour and a half’s drive away from the path of the total eclipse. Since I’m already going to take the day off and since I have plenty of hotel points available I’m planning on making an overnight trip of it to make it into a fun event for my kids. Let’s hope the weather cooperates. Only nine more months to wait!
If you haven’t made your hotel reservations yet, you may be in for a nasty surprise. Lots of hotels are sold out or are charging double or even triple their normal rates. Even AirBnB is sold out or high end places only. Hope you get lucky.
Did not know that, thanks! I’ll get on that. Worst case we’ll drive over the morning of.
File this away for future reference: There will be another total solar eclipse crossing North America in April of 2024. The path of totality for that one goes through Mexico, into Texas, heads northeast through AR, IL, IN and then follows the US-Canada border form Lake Erie eastward, before crossing Maine and the Canadian Maritimes.
Thank you so much! We are in SC and will definitely plan to see it!