Where to find a genuinely dark sky

A truly dark sky — Bortle class 1 or 2 — is now rarer than most wilderness. Roughly a third of humanity cannot see the Milky Way from home, and in Europe and North America that figure is far higher.

The formal dark sky reserves are the reliable starting point: Aoraki Mackenzie in New Zealand, NamibRand in Namibia, the Alqueva reserve in Portugal's Alentejo, and Exmoor or Galloway for a European option that does not require a long-haul flight.

Timing matters more than location for most people. Aim for the week either side of a new moon, check astronomical rather than civil twilight, and give your eyes a genuine forty minutes to adapt — which means no phone screen, or a red filter if you must.

The southern hemisphere has the better half of the galaxy. The galactic core sits highest in southern winter, which is why Namibia and the Atacama between May and September remain the reference-grade options.

Bring less equipment than you expect to need. A pair of 10×50 binoculars resolves the Orion nebula and four Jovian moons, weighs almost nothing, and will show you more in an hour than a telescope you are still assembling at midnight.