All of you folks living along the eclipse path have been blessed with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the rare and awesome spectacle of a total eclipse of the Sun from right at home. But you all also have a rare and awesome opportunity to bless others, and even to make a few bucks! I hope you will all consider extending some…
ECLIPSE HOSPITALITY!
It’s very simple! Just invite some folks to stay over as overnight house guests on the weekend before Eclipse Day — Monday, August 21, 2017!
You can invite family and friends who live outside the eclipse path, in your home state and beyond!
Do you have any social media friends who you never met in person? This is a great chance!
You can invite people who live along the path of the 2024 eclipse, who can reciprocate in seven years!
If everyone living along the path would invite even one other guest, it would double the number of people who could experience this rare and amazing astronomical spectacle! If you could invite more than one family, that would be even better! Maybe you could have some families camp in your backyard? Or if you have a farm, maybe even more? This would be one way to make sure that the maximum number of people get to experience this rare eclipse. And this would also help manage the influx of visitors, to avoid The American Eclipse Traffic Jam.
If you’re not sure about opening your home, here’s some other ideas you could promote in your community….
OUTDOOR EVENT PLANNING: Promote scheduling of general outdoor events during the weekend preceding the eclipse, such as outdoor music festivals, rodeos, Renaissance fairs, etc. Encourage the provision of camping for participants on the event grounds through Eclipse Day.
COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS and other open-air facilities can be temporarily re-zoned into temporary campgrounds to accommodate the influx.
LOCAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Work out an exchange program with other school districts, in your state or in other states. Open up your local gymnasiums and other facilities to groups of youth for overnight accommodations, and/or have families of students host visiting students.
LOCAL PRIVATE SCHOOLS: Coordinate with any affiliated or networked schools from outside the community, such as religiously-affiliated parochial schools, Montessori schools, or other, similar to the public school plans above.
HOMESCHOOLS: Invite other students or families from your own state or other states. Coordinate through your state homeschool associations to match up visitors with hosts.
CHURCHES AND CHURCH CAMPS: Invite youth groups from affiliated churches in their denominations, provide overnight accommodations at churches, campgrounds and/or homes.
YOUTH GROUPS: Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, American Heritage Girls, Alert Cadets, etc. Hosting units along the eclipse path can coordinate camping for visiting units from outside the path. Local area scout camps can be set aside to accommodate visiting units.
ASTRONOMY NETWORK: There are local planetariums, observatories and astronomy clubs everywhere, including your towns along the eclipse path and elsewhere. You can ask your local astronomy organization to coordinate with other such groups, to help direct the public to your location. Such contact can help promote, spread the word, provide networking and support for locals wanting to extend hospitality to visitors. A database of local astronomy organizations around the USA and beyond is found at the Sky & Telescope web site.
Suggestions For All You Entrepreneurs Along the Path!
Are you a farmer, or do you own any open land or any other sort of outdoor venue? Open up a fallow field or other available space as a temporary campground for overnight campers!
Overnight accommodations will be at a premium! You can likely charge $100 per site, or perhaps even more! Whatever the market will bear!
Though RVs would be self-contained, tent campers would require sanitation facilities. “Porta-potties” and a potable water truck could be arranged for a nominal cost, as well as an event rider on your insurance policy. You might also want to obtain temporary permission from the local zoning commission, if applicable. But imagine if you could provide 100 campsites to families for $100/per night. That’s a quick $10,000 for one night’s camping!
RESERVATIONS: If you ever see a weather satellite photo, you can see that there are always clouds somewhere at any given time. Sadly, it’s probably going to be cloudy somewhere along the eclipse path that day. You can’t guarantee 100% cloudless skies over your area on Eclipse Day, but you can only extend the opportunity to prospective campers. So you might want to require non-refundable payment in advance to cover your own expenses, with the understanding that the campers are assuming their own risk in the event of clouds or cancellation.
PROMOTING YOUR CAMPSITE: You can list your overnight accommodations on AirBnB.com, a travel website especially for hosts to connect directly with guests. Other accommodation promotions could be extended through Craigslist and eBay or any other suitable internet message boards, especially for reaching a target demographic.
ECLIPSE SHADES – HAVE AVAILABLE IN LARGE QUANTITIES!
If you live anywhere along the path, it’s a good idea to have more pairs of protective eyeglasses than you need for your family, just in case you have guests who need them or if anyone you know needs a pair in a pinch. You can order bulk quantities of our special commemorative American Eclipse USA Eclipse Shades!
