Comment by nottorp
1 day ago
Hotels in the path of the eclipse were already expensive on those dates in Gibraltar and Spain. Now with the press coverage they'll be unattainable.
1 day ago
Hotels in the path of the eclipse were already expensive on those dates in Gibraltar and Spain. Now with the press coverage they'll be unattainable.
Somehow it feels like social media spread ever more FOMO for this year's eclipse, there were long queues for eclipse glasses at local opticians, although where I lived we only had 90% totality (people think each person needs a pair, not aware that you're not going to stare at the thing the whole time, and sharing is possible).
And since the 2026 one is fresh, the 2027 one has a lot of hype and more FOMO for those who MO'ed.
I don’t see the hype as inherently related to social media. There was a lot of hype for the 1999 eclipse that passed through Europe. Everyone was talking about it and where they would go. That’s what it felt like.
It’s a rare and impressive occasion. It’s ok for people to be excited about it.
Buy your glasses in advance.
The BBC news site has a particular boner for slightly unusual moon appearances. If you search the site for moon, there's abundant stories on topics like "blood moon", "buck moon", "super new moon", "strawberry moon", "blue moon", "orange moon", "worm moon", "snow moon", "wolf moon", "harvest moon", the moon being quite near in the sky to Venus, "beaver supermoon", "hunter's moon", "pink moon", and whenever anything even approximating an eclipse happens they write multiple articles about it. So I am given the impression that eclipses happen every other week.
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> people think each person needs a pair, not aware that you're not going to stare at the thing the whole time, and sharing is possible
We had like 60 seconds of totality, sharing the glasses with my wife would mean we get 30 seconds each. Of course both of us want double the viewing time and the glasses are a couple of euros.
The period of totality is the only phase when you do not need to use protective eyewear. You would be able to safely look directly at the eclipsed Sun, as long as your timing is precise.
https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety
It's during the partial/annular/penumbral phases when you use the protective eyewear, and those are lasting a couple of hours on each side.
But even protected viewing should be curtailed to a couple of minutes at a time.
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In Berlin for example all shops ran out of eclipse viewing glasses, people were selling them on eBay & co. at 15 -35 euros a pair…
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88% Totality here. Queues to buy glasses for 10 bucks the day of the eclipse were hours long.
It will have booked up quicker than this year's event, at least in part, because totality touches a much smaller portion of European territory, so those for who travel to parts of Europe is easier (or just feels safer to them) than north africa / middle east and cheaper than Egypt, will have crammed into that area. A large proportion of the eclipse spotters in the Shengen region will be booked into that area rather than the much larger tranche of Spain 2026's eclipse touched. I suspect this is a more significant factor than FOMO after missing this year's because people often plan this sort of trip more than one year in advance, precisely because of the expected demand closer to the time.
Staying a few hours drive or public transport away may still be quite practical, though it is at a time when many take their summer holidays so anywhere even vaguely touristy in will be more expensive that week even without the special event.
I'm thinking this will also saturate the western Europe (or at least France, Spain, Portugal) RV rental market. If you've seen the small RVs that people rent to park along the side of the road on Tour de France routes in summer, same general idea.
The trick will be to go to Tangier, on the other side of the strait. It's a 40-minute ferry ride, I did it a few months ago.