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Comment by sp332 | Hacker News Reader

Places to stay are booked solid along the route. I've also seen reports of reservations made months in advance getting cancelled when the hosts discover they could get more money. Traffic tends to be epically bad on eclipse days, so keep that in mind too when planning.

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If they're not booked they're exorbitantly expensive. I've seen one optimistic soul listing an unremarkable house in rural Arkansas for $7000/night: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/905741949079877847?check_in=202...

I live in a city nearly directly under the middle of that route. Schools are cancelled for the day, and were known cancelled at the start of the school year. Everything is booked and has been for a while. It's crazy. I'm glad to live near a park that's got some events planned but doesn't require me to go far or past a lot of people to get there.

It looks like there are a few major airports in the path of totality, including at least one very close to the centerline (CLE in Cleveland, Ohio). Maybe just fly in, watch it from the airport, and fly home?

I mentioned this a while back[0] but you really want to be in a rural area when it happens. Most important thing is being in totality, but if you're going to go all the way to totality, go rural.

When the sky goes dark, and the world suddenly cools, and the birds and insects suddenly wake up and come to life all around you... you'll know you did it right. It's magic.

I'll be at a YMCA camp that's hosting a family weekend of summer camp style events. Win win.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39468875

I've heard of people planning on doing this at DFW (which is not all that close to the centerline). I also know a guy who's flying up from Atlanta to Indianapolis, I think just for the day, although he plans to leave the airport.

Flights are much more expensive than normal, though. But as that would be the only expense maybe it's not crazy?

I’m grateful to be ~30 minutes away from totality. But I’m still shooting to spend the extra 2-3 hours driving to a place typically only an hour away just because it affords opportunities after the eclipse to entertain us while the traffic leaving the destination can taper out. On the previous eclipse, it took us about 3 hours to drive 20 miles, after the event. I’m not making that mistake again.

Yes, it's better to stay put for quite a while, the roads and highways will be stupidly full as almost everyone rushes to leave the moment totality is over. Then party through the night after the eclipse, share with others what struck you the most.

We made a reservation months ago, and it was cancelled because the owner could triple the price for someone else. They didn’t even ask if we’d pay more (we would have).

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