Nine of the best places to see the night sky in Asia-Pacific – secluded stargazing spots, from island resorts to backcountry camps
- Some of the darkest skies on Earth are in Asia and Australasia, from Mauritius and the Maldives to China, Thailand, Japan, New Zealand and Australia
- At resorts and in remote tented camps, telescopes are on hand, often with experts to guide you across the Milky Way and show you how to photograph the stars
Have you been looking up during lockdown? Or maybe it’s been years since you stood transfixed by a starry sky.
Asia has a reputation for being domed in neon lights, but in its remote corners, and in the wider Asia-Pacific region, there exists plenty of true darkness at night.
Sure, Hong Kong and coastal China are heavily light-polluted, but check a light pollution map such as darksitefinder.com and you’ll discover that the Himalayas, northern Thailand and Laos, much of rural China – and particularly Western Australia, New Zealand, the Maldives and any other islands you care to name – have some of the darkest skies left on the planet.
Post-pandemic travel is at last beginning to look possible, with the Hong Kong government having relaxed re-entry conditions slightly from Monday, and a future visit to any of the following hotels or resorts in the week before a new moon should guarantee truly dark skies and a sight of the Milky Way.
1. Shangri-La City, Yunnan, China
Its coasts may be light-polluted, but a country as vast as China obviously has some excellent places in which to go stargazing. In a remote northwestern corner of Yunnan province in the country’s southwest is Shangri-La City, in the Diqing Tibetan autonomous prefecture.
