Portal North. ISSUE 2 - Magazine - Page 10
Dark sky travelling
Following the moon and stars is becoming
increasingly popular when it comes to eco-friendly
trips. The solar eclipse happening in August 2026
may be a catalyst for many to start looking upwards
and indulge their inner explorer.
The website DarkSky UK maps the best British ‘dark
sky places’, which meet the criteria for being away
from local light pollution and offer the best views of
our galaxy.
Locations include the Cairngorns and the
Inner Hebrides in Scotland, Ireland’s Antrim Coast,
Ennerdale in the Lake District, Lancashire’s Forest
of Bowland, the Shropshire Hills and Exmoor.
You can also scour the globe for 160,000 sq km
of further landscapes renowned for showcasing
the cosmos after dark, including villages where
light pollution has been cut in favour of nature’s
spotlight. Møn and Nyord in Denmark and Jelsa in
Croatia are among the examples.
In Sopotnia Wielka, a village in Jeleśnia, Poland,
a campaign to switch off streetlamps began in
2001, and outdoor sodium bulbs were fully removed
a decade later. The settlement now hosts annual
dark sky festivals coinciding with the Perseid
meteor shower, which is usually visible between
mid-July and late August.
Rila Monastery
Spiritual silence
If you’re looking for something a touch more solemn in
your peaceful retreat, it doesn’t get much quieter and
re昀氀ective than a monastery.
Founded in 1133, the Benedictine Heiligenkreuz Abbey
in Austria, just 15km west of Vienna, is just one place
to 昀椀nd lebensgefühl, or ‘life feeling’.
Guests are welcome – you’ll pay a suggested donation
– and a stay here plants you in a community of 80
monks, mostly aged under 50, and many of whom
received their calling online amid the familiar deluge
of emails.
Doing away with doom scrolling to pursue spirituality,
they only ask one thing of guests: silence.
Further east, a night in one of the 400 or so monk’s
cells at Bulgaria’s remote Rila Monastery asks similar
of both pilgrims and tourists.
A place to re昀氀ect and recuperate, rather than talk,
its ornate church is set against a scene of towering
mountains, invoking the true meaning of majesty.
All of which is before we mention Namsham Wellness,
a ‘retirement home’ for burnt out Gen Z and Millennials
in Gopeng, Malaysia, where ditching phones is a must.
Meanwhile, 昀椀sh feeding, vegetable planting,
daydreaming sessions and schedules of any kind are,
昀椀ttingly, optional.
10 PORTAL NORTH ISSUE 2
The Star Chaser
