Ever since I learned that the stars we see are, in fact, images from the past, I’ve been obsessed with the night sky. Looking up can feel like peering through a window across time: some of that light has traveled for thousands of years before reaching our eyes.
Yet as urbanization and light pollution have brightened our cities, finding a truly dark sky has become an adventure in itself. This week, we’ve rounded up Europe’s last great dark-sky destinations, from remote islands to vast national parks.
I’m Berkok Yüksel, senior content strategist at National Geographic Traveller (UK), and I’ll be hosting this week’s Boundless newsletter to guide you through the start of the season. If you’d prefer to explore the past by looking around rather than gazing up, we also have a time traveler’s guide to London, alongside a harvest season roundup of U.S. wineries and recommendations for where to travel in October.
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From the Canaries to the Scottish Borders, Europe is dotted with remote landscapes where exceptionally dark skies make stargazing an unforgettable part of the journey.
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KONSTANTIN KALISHKO, ALAMY
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Mahmoud Mahmoud, my guide, reveals that I’m standing in the oldest and best-preserved Swahili settlement in East Africa, and that Swahili means ‘of the coast’ in Arabic. It was here that East Africans, Arabs, Persians, and Asians first coalesced, bringing a new language and culture into being.
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The River Thames is the soul of England’s capital. Along its hallowed banks, it’s possible to glimpse the past lives and possible futures of one of the world’s most storied cities.
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In this national park, the highest peak rises from a 260-million-year-old fossil reef and the desert gives way to limestone canyons. The park's dark skies and strikingly colorful foliage make it an excellent fall escape.
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