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Total Solar Eclipse Travel

The midday Sun has vanished, replaced by a gaping black hole in the sky that’s wreathed in a spiderweb halo of silvery light. Daylight becomes twilight; bright planets and stars emerge. Sunset colors wrap the horizon. Eyewitnesses shout, clap, cry, or are struck silent. It is sensory overload; an unimagined experience. It is a total solar eclipse.

Witnessing a total eclipse of the Sun with our travel groups is a must-see, bucket-list event. That’s because it’s not just a sight to behold—it’s something that needs to be experienced. No photograph can ever do totality justice. Words are inadequate to describe it. Witnessing a total solar eclipse is visceral, emotional, an experience unlike any other. First-timers are often completely unprepared for the range of emotions that engulf them when the Sun vanishes from the sky. Moments later, when a beam of sunlight pierces the darkness and totality ends, the first words on everyone’s lips are: “When is the next one?”

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Crafting Total Solar Eclipse Travel

Joining a TravelQuest total solar eclipse tour means a worry-free travel experience, because we look after all the research, planning, and logistics. For each destination, we find the perfect balance of high-quality accommodations, great meals, and comfortable transport.

This requires extensive long-range planning, particularly if totality passes over a remote region of our planet where the amenities are limited. Several years prior to the eclipse, TravelQuest scouts potential viewing sites along the path, reserves nearby hotel rooms, and arranges local transportation. In doing so, we lock in many of the core costs of the tour.

Weather is another consideration—the sky must be clear during totality. Since we can’t wave away any clouds that appear on eclipse day, we work closely with long-time eclipse meteorologist Jay Anderson to try to avoid clouds altogether. He studies the weather prospects for our potential eclipse-viewing sites, checks the weather constantly prior to totality, and can recommend an alternate site if weather at our prime viewing location doesn’t look ideal. Jay has forecast eclipse-day weather since 1979, and he has been involved with TravelQuest since its inception. Thanks to his expertise, we have an unparalleled record of success when it comes to seeing totality.

This is our craft: designing and executing eclipse-travel packages that provide our clients with the opportunity to experience the wonders of our planet and stand in the shadow of the Moon. In so doing, TravelQuest has developed a loyal following—on most tours, at least half of our guests have traveled with us before. Our experienced trip leaders are among the best in the eclipse travel industry, and our local guides and contacts open doors to sights and events that are often inaccessible to independent travelers.

A most civilized way to await the arrival of totality. (Photo by Paul Deans/TQ)
Celebrating another successful total solar eclipse. (Photo by Jay Anderson/TQ)

Previous Total Eclipse Travels

Since its founding in 1996, TravelQuest has planned and fulfilled some 250 total solar eclipse tours and astronomy-themed excursions to all seven continents. A few of our more unusual solar eclipse viewing locations have been the deck of an icebreaker near the North Pole, the Gobi and Libyan Deserts, Easter Island among the Moai, Norway’s northern island of Svalbard, and on board aircraft flying over the Antarctic and the North Atlantic. We have also seen totality from more traditional sites including Turkey, Chile, Egypt, Spain, and numerous locations across the United States during Totality 2017. And we’d be remiss not to mention seeing totality numerous times from the deck of the luxurious m/s Paul Gauguin, sailing out of Tahiti. In other words, we offer total solar eclipse travel at its very best.

At TravelQuest, we have a particular philosophy when it comes to developing our eclipse trips. Naturally, our main goal is to place our travelers in the right place, at the right time, with the optimum weather prospects, to give our group the best possible chance of seeing totality. We also organize hotels, meals, local transportation, local guides, and so on—in addition to providing a great eclipse-viewing site.

But totality is brief. It takes only one tiny cloud, in the wrong part of the sky at the wrong time, to ruin the highlight of the tour. That’s why, when TravelQuest creates total solar eclipse tours, we do so with the idea that you’re taking a solar eclipse vacation. We design our tour packages to provide the best possible travel experience through a part of the world you may not be familiar with—but have either always wanted to visit or perhaps never thought of traveling to. Standing in the shadow of the Moon during a total solar eclipse is, literally, the icing on the cake of an incredible journey.

Without totality in the high Arctic, our TQ travelers would never have dreamed they could reach the North Pole by icebreaker. (Photo by Aram Kaprielian/TQ)
An eclipse in Spain provided TQ travelers a chance to see stunning prehistoric cave paintings, including those in caverns with limited public access. (Photo by Paul Deans/TQ)
Totality over Rapa Nui (Easter Island) gave TQ travelers the opportunity to visit this remote island and see its mysterious moai. (Photo by Paul Deans/TQ)

Join Us for A Remarkable Experience

Totality is an immersive affair. For mere moments, it engenders a sense of wonder and awe in all who view it. Those who have seen totality will travel thousands of miles to see another and to relive this emotional celestial spectacle.

It’s often said that seeing totality is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Fortunately, that doesn’t have to be the case. There is a total solar eclipse visible from somewhere on Earth every 18 months or so. After visiting Antarctica for totality in 2021, TravelQuest has a variety of upcoming total solar eclipse tours in various stages of development: Western Australia and the Timor Sea in April 2023; Mexico, the eastern United States, and Canada in April 2024; and Iceland and northern Spain in August 2026. You’ll find TravelQuest at each of these eclipses, perfectly positioned somewhere along the centerline of totality. Join us, and share in the wonder as we stand in the shadow of the Moon.

Images of totality are beautiful, but they pale in comparison to the experience of seeing a total solar eclipse in person. (Photo by Rick Fienberg/TQ)

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Header image by Rick Fienberg/TQ

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