Want to Marvel at Next Year’s Total Solar Eclipse? Book Now.

27.10.2023 - 09:25 / nytimes.com / Michael Zeiler

In just over five months, a total solar eclipse will blot out the sun across a wide swath of North America for the first time since 2017. If you want to catch a seat at the show, you might want to book your room now — and be prepared to pay a premium.

In Erie, Pa., a Hampton Inn studio with two queen beds that usually goes for as little as $210 a night was commanding $1,188 this week. A studio with two twin beds at the Extended Stay America Suites in Amherst, N.Y., (near Buffalo) was going for $1,164 instead of less than $150, a typical nightly rate. Some other hotels have already sold out.

The eclipse, on April 8, will begin in Mazatlán, Mexico, and sweep across 13 U.S. states, from Texas to Maine. In some places, total darkness could last up to four and a half minutes. Cheering crowds are likely to fill the streets, as they did in 2017, and the sound of car horns will fill the highways as giant traffic jams also make a comeback.

“It’s a little bit like going to a big sporting event where people take their time getting in but everybody wants to leave at the same time,” said Scott Katsinas, a travel adviser at Katsinas Travel Consultants in Tucson, Ariz.

Texas, Arkansas and portions of southeastern Oklahoma will be prime destinations because the weather in those states is likely to be clear, said Michael Zeiler, a solar eclipse cartographer at GreatAmericanEclipse.com, a website that provides information about solar eclipses around the world.

Hotels in those three states have been filling up for months, and the prices of rooms in places like Indianapolis have nearly doubled. Midwestern and Northeastern states like Ohio, New York, Vermont and Maine, where clear skies are less guaranteed in early spring, have so far been less squeezed, but demand is growing.

Chris Dancer, 63, a freelance electronics engineer from Bentham, England, and an experienced eclipse chaser (this will be his seventh chase), booked his trip in June. Even then, with the eclipse still about 10 months away, he noticed that people in several eclipse-focused Facebook groups were struggling to find places to stay.

“I thought, OK, so I better actually book this,” Mr. Dancer said.

He and his wife, Diane Dancer, 61, reserved a cabin in Wickes, Ark., from April 7 to 9, for about $130 a night; as of this week, rooms and Airbnbs around Wickes started at around $375 a night.

Major hotel chains say demand has jumped in the eclipse zone. Some properties owned by IHG Hotels & Resorts, which includes brands like Hotel Indigo, InterContinental and Holiday Inn, are sold out in Bloomington, Ind., said Brian Hicks, a senior vice president at IHG.

Finding accommodations is hardly easier for those banking on home-sharing services like Airbnb and Vrbo,