Officially, no; however, I have shot Milky Way & country dark sky before, & even an observatory by full moonlight (only).
Good advice. The sky isn’t dark when it’s a full or just bright moon. There’s no stars on a cloudy night, etc. Bring extra clothes, A very windy Feb night on the beach is cold!
I’ve been to the Kerry International Dark Sky Reserve, though I didn’t know beforehand that the area was a dark sky reserve.
We were outside after dark a couple of nights and had a chance to do some star gazing.
I grew up in the middle of nowhere, with theoretically very little light pollution but I don’t recall the sky looking quite as dramatic. The night sky had a depth to it that I’d never seen before. Spectacular.
After a quick perusal of the list, the only official Dark Sky location I’ve been to is Grand Canyon and I’ll have to admit, I was looking more at the hole in the ground than all the stars above. I have been in plenty of locations with no rights around, though, and the stars are so thick that, despite knowing my way around the sky a bit, I was totally lost (I know Polaris is over there a but but which is it? And where’s Andromeda?).
I blame living in the city too long. I fired up a planetarium program and dialed back on the stars visible until it matched the sky outside. Magnitude 3 or brighter in all the murk, damn few stars.
Funny - last Aug we hiked down to Phantom Ranch, but I don’t recall doing any stargazing. I think the 1st night we were too beat from the descent, and the 2d night we were waking early for the ascent.
A couple of decades ago we were on a Caribbean cruise, and I remember a spectacular view of a comet - Hyakutake I believe. To avoid the lights we went to the topmost deck, way up towards the front. I recall the officer on duty stepped out for a smoke, and we had a nice chat about whether modern ship pilots were trained in celestial navigation.
I am surprised that the south shoulder of Mount Haleakala on the island of Maui is not included in the list. Other Hawaiian islands might have similar situations, but I have not been to them. TOTALLY dark with just a couple of pinpricks of light from the Big Island/Hawaii.
Lake Superior is similarly dark when one gets away from the few cities on the shore.
Yeah, I still remember the summer before college visiting one branch of my family in Tasmania, and being somewhere about an hour or so outside Hobart, looking up at the night sky and understanding for the first time why our galaxy was called “The Milky Way.” It was just a gorgeous milky swash of starts across the sky, and I could swear I even saw colors in there. Coming from a place where there might be a few dozen stars in the sky to a place where it looked like there were a few thousand was quite an amazing experience. Plus there was also the whole unfamiliar Southern Hemisphere sky as a bonus to this experience.
McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis, TX is supposedly the darkest place in the lower 48. However, it was cloudy when I visited so not the best night sky I’ve ever personally observed. That would have been somewhere in bumblefuck Otero or Lincoln County, NM.
Can’t see anything in DC.
It looks like I’ve been to almost every location West of the Mississippi. We were camping for those trips, so definitely got to see the skies.
We’ve added several telescopes over the years.
For the kids, we have monoculars. We also have some image stabilization binoculars. These are a good way to get started observing.
We have at least one light-weight telescope that we can carry out on a night hike.
We have a larger scope with stabilization that we use if we’re setting up in a spot.
Be sure to allow enough time for your eyes to adapt to the darkness. We use red or green lights walking to the site, and we try not to use the lights again once we’re in position. I’ll be honest, there have been times when I’m a bit concerned about bears, but so far no issues.
I’d recommend bringing something to sit on. It gets old standing around for a few hours.
In my youth, I traveled more than once through Utah, Arizona, and other relatively ‘dark sky’ parts of North America. In my opinion though, nothing has rivaled the dazzling, dark, rich skies of northern Ontario.
I’ve been to the Cypress Hills Dark Sky Preserve in southern Saskatchewan, though it’s not tremendously darker than the night sky on the farm I grew up on. Saskatchewan in general has pretty dark skies, though of course in late June there can be issues with the local fusion reactor lighting up the northern horizon a bit.
I’ve also worked back in my younger years planting trees in various places in interior BC and northern Ontario that wouldn’t be officially designated, but would actually be darker than most official dark sky locations.
New Mexico is full of places that are plenty dark at night, even if they aren’t on that map. I’m willing to bet that some of the places I was looking at the stars on Boy Scout camping trips would count in terms of dang dark.
Not an official place, and not good for anything but stargazing: OK Highway 136 on the border of OK and KS. There’s nothing there.
I live in a “Certified IDA International Dark Sky Community”, but wedged between enough much larger non-dark sky communities all it does is makes driving at night a bit more challenging. No spectacular night sky.
Grand Canyon just got IDA certified; I was at the North Rim for a couple of nights earlier this week, but overcast and rainy. Binoculars stayed in the car.
A few years back I went to a stargazing event at Kitt Peak (they have them almost every night). Moon was up so not as dark as I would have liked (they reserve the nights around the new moon for overnight events for hardcore amateurs), but still dark and clear. Plus big telescopes. Not on the IDA list, but they take their dark skies seriously (headlights off when leaving, they covered the daytime running lights of newer cars).
Absolute darkest skies I have experienced was a long time ago driving I-40 through northwest Arizona. Stopped at a rest area and literally could not see my hand in front of my face, other than by how it blocked the stars.
Thanks to the good folks who contributed to this thread. I have never been to a dark-sky location of any kind before, so it’s all new to me. Do they have an organized viewing campaign at the official locations? Or do you just pitch in your tent and get started? What about the facilities? I mean, lodging overnight or at least… taking care of business? 
I suppose in the unofficial remote/by-the-road locations it’s all out in the open.
Has anyone been to Cerro Paranal or other big-scope locations?
Huh. I looked at the map and it doesn’t show any official dark sky locations in Hawaii (they do say they are experiencing technical difficulties, but I’m not sure that’s the reason, as there are many other locations pinpointed).
That’s surprising as Mauna Kea is well known as one of the best observatory spots in the world (big fights going on right now over whether to permit the Thirty Meter Telescope, but that’s a different thread).
As a tourist, you can go up there on a guided tour - it’s expensive (I forget how much, but nothing for tourists is cheap in Hawaii) but convenient, and the trip is guided by an astronomer (or at least someone with solid stargazing skills) and you set up several telescopes to look out of.
You can also drive to the top on your own (maybe not right now due to protests) but prepare well, 'cuz even in summer it’s cold up there. In winter the roads might be closed due to bad weather.
Another person who hasn’t been to any official dark sky site but who has spent a good chunk of time waaay out in the dark tulies. Look at this NASA pic and note the large, almost completely empty, area off to the upper left.
You can be a dozen miles from the nearest human. Get up on a 7000+ ft ridge and the night sky is amazing. The “bowl” of the sky feels real.
Despite seeing so many stars clearly, if there’s anything moving around up there it’s a lot easier to spot.
I’ve been to places in South America that would almost certainly qualify, officially, as dark sky, but I didn’t see them on any of the lists.
Saw a couple signs in Jerome, Arizona mentioning a dark sky zone.
My backyard during power failures.
It’s a strange and alien feeling when an entire section of the city is pitch black.
Amazing pic. Looks like one can drive from the deep south to the upper north-west without encountering a major city! The Perseid shower would look spectacular from a dark location.
