Astrotourism for small towns and rural areas

If you are working to promote tourism in a rural area or small town, consider the niche travel trend called astrotourism.

It’s just a fancy term for attracting people who like stargazing.

A friend of mine asked what I knew about it, because she’s gotten inquiries from small towns about how they can take advantage of their dark skies to attract more visitors.

I responded that astrotourism is a trending tourism niche and perfect for rural destinations.

A few quick resources and data points, if this travel trend fits your town:

**  The European Union funds the STARLIGHT program to encourage astrotourism in rural areas  –  might be some ideas here for any rural destination  –  https://eu-cap-network.ec.europa.eu/news/aiming-stars-astrotourism-rural-areas_en.

**  Fort Griffin State Historic Site in western Texas is pretty isolated, but they’ve had success with dark sky events and a Milky Way Photography Workshop, and here’s a blog post about astrotourism in Texas.

**  A Travel + Leisure article – Why “Noctourism” is the Hottest Travel Trend of 2025.

**  Remember how I’m always saying that Pinterest is an incredible platform for tracking travel trends?

Here is what I found looking for “Stargazing trips” inspo on Pinterest  –  https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=stargazing%20trips  Such a variety of articles and content!

**  Since many younger travelers tend to use social media as a search engine instead of Google, I poked around for some “Stargazing trip ideas” posts on Instagram  –  https://www.instagram.com/explore/search/keyword/?q=stargazing%20trip%20ideas

If you are a rural or small town destination, make sure to connect with your fellow marketing people at any nearby state, province, or national parks, preserves, or grasslands. They are perfect for collaboration and cross-promotion in this area.

Update from Main Street Conference

And let me add a quick update from the Main Street Now Conference held in Tulsa. I attended a session called “Science Discovery on Main Street” that featured two towns doing interesting things with nighttime science assets. Only one is technically astrotourism, but both are worth knowing about:

** Hillsboro Texas (near my maternal grandmother’s hometown of Itasca, south of Fort Worth) found that they have a rare firefly species habitat, so they do “Glow Hillsboro” which is to heighten awareness. They want to get people involved in protecting dark skies and fighting light pollution, sustaining the habitat, and enjoying the “lightning bugs.” What struck me most was how many different local science champions they pulled together. More 25 local science champions from the college, state parks, museums, farmers, podcasters and more work together to figure out what to do with what they had right underfoot.

** Monroeville, Alabama (best known as Harper Lee’s hometown) found themselves near a Dark Sky area and essentially “bought a telescope to see what would happen.” The more people they got involved in figuring out what to do with this asset, the more people had a personal stake in its success. I love this tagline idea for them: “You discovered the universe in downtown Monroeville.” They now loan telescopes through the public library, they’re planning stargazing events (with backup plans for clouds — always have a backup plan for clouds!), and they’re building a Constellation Trail. Their amateur astronomy club holds its inaugural meeting this month!

Two other resources worth flagging from this session:

** The Artemis II moon mission has generated real public enthusiasm for space and astronomy right now. This is good timing to launch anything in this space, if you’ll pardon my puns.

** And, whoa, did you know that NASA has Solar System Ambassadors you can connect with? That’s a free expert resource most towns don’t know exists.

Let me know your ideas about astrotourism, down in the comments.

Originally published at Tourism Currents: Astrotourism for small towns and rural areas, November 2025

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Sheila Scarborough

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• Astrotourism for small towns and rural areas