While destinations such as Chile’s Atacama Desert and the American Southwest have long dominated the astrotourism market, South Africa is quietly emerging as an under-the-radar player.
Earlier this month Blade Nzimande, who serves as minister of the country’s Department of Science, Technology and Innovation, presented South Africa’s first Astro-Tourism Strategy to Parliament, formalizing the government’s intent to capitalize on one of its most underutilized attractions: its unpolluted night skies.
The strategy, launched jointly with the Department of Tourism, aims to position South Africa as an astrotourism destination by integrating astronomical research facilities, astrophotography experiences, dedicated dark-sky tourism zones and Indigenous celestial storytelling into the national tourism landscape.
Some of South Africa’s most established private reserves are already working to align themselves with dark-sky tourism best practices. Among them, Lapalala Wilderness Reserve in Limpopo is in the process of securing Dark Sky Park certification from DarkSky International. If successful, it would become southern Africa’s first officially certified Dark Sky Park, giving it a status currently held by only 195 locations globally.
The adaptations required to obtain a Dark Sky Park certification are extensive, but according to Bronwyn Maree, Biodiversity Centre curator for the Lapalala Wilderness School, protecting the skies matters for generations to come. For Lapalala and similar reserves, astrotourism isn’t an add-on; it’s becoming part of the safari experience itself.
Star-studded sleep-outs
While traditional safaris focus on early morning and afternoon game drives, most luxury itineraries have historically ended the day with a campfire or fine dining under lantern-lit decks. Astrotourism is changing that model, pushing luxury lodges to extend experiences well past sunset, recentering the night sky as the attraction itself.
“Imagine lying in a sky bed at one of Lepogo Lodges on Lapalala Wilderness Nature Reserve or being a school-going learner on a bed roll at the sleep-out camp at Lapalala Wilderness School beneath an uninterrupted sky, hearing the calls of distant hyenas and night birds, realizing just how bright the Milky Way is when there’s no artificial light for miles,” said Maree. “For city travelers, this is often their first experience of true darkness.
The dark-sky experiences are complemented in Africa with cultural storytelling. At Xaus Lodge, within the AeHai Kalahari Heritage Park (which was declared a Dark Sky Sanctuary in 2019), travelers aren’t just observing space through telescopes — they’re hearing Tswana and San cultural stories about the constellations, learning how celestial navigation shaped migration routes and ancient survival techniques.
“We say at Xaus Lodge that by day you see the world, but at night you see the universe,” said Eleanor Muller, marketing manager at Transfrontier Parks Destinations, who has helped develop astrotourism experiences in the Kalahari. “And there is something about that which captures your heart.”
High-end sleep-out offerings are evolving into fully immersive retreats where luxury meets nature. At Tswalu Kalahari star beds pair telescopes, heated bedding, and private stargazing decks for a uniquely sensorial experience. (A similar experience can be had outside of South Africa, at Natural Selection’s Skybeds in northern Botswana’s Okavango Delta, where guests sleep three stories above the ground, surrounded by wildlife, with no walls, no artificial lighting and nothing between them and the cosmos.)
Solar eclipse on the horizon
Beyond dedicated dark sky reserves and sleep-outs, eclipse tourism is emerging as another major driver of astrotourism expansion, not only in South Africa but across the subcontinent. On Nov. 25, 2030, a total solar eclipse will sweep across Northern Drakensberg and Durban’s coastline in South Africa as well as Namibia’s Sossusvlei Desert, placing some of sub-Saharan Africa’s most dramatic landscapes directly under the eclipse path.
African lodges are already receiving inquiries from travelers looking to secure their stay five years ahead of time, and specialty operators are curating private viewing experiences in remote locations.
“Eclipse tourism isn’t new, but Africa’s infrastructure is catching up,” said Muller. “For luxury travelers, the appeal lies in experiencing the eclipse somewhere remote, with zero crowds, where the silence of the moment is as powerful as the celestial event itself.”
Lodges positioning themselves for prime eclipse-viewing include AndBeyond’s Sossusvlei Desert Lodge, which offers an in-house astronomer and private observatory, and Wolwedans Dunes Lodge, both located in Namibia.
Advice for advisors
Travel advisors looking to pair traditional safari experiences with astrotourism offerings should consider blending night-sky experiences with daytime wildlife adventure to create niche itineraries for high-end travelers.
“What we may see with dark-sky tourism is that people come for a safari, have their first moment of realizing what an unpolluted sky actually looks like, and then start actively seeking more of these experiences in other destinations,” said Transfrontier’s Muller. “Once guests have that ‘wow’ moment, they don’t want stargazing to be an afterthought anymore — they want it woven into their trip the same way top-tier game viewing is.”
That means integrating astrotourism through deep-space telescope sessions, Indigenous storytelling nights and multiday sleep-outs focused on different celestial phenomena. A well-designed itinerary might combine lodges with in-house astronomy experts with reserves offering night drives for lunar-lit predator sightings or align a trip with the peak dates of meteor showers for a tailored astrotourism experience.
Travel Weekly
