As of this moment 100% of comments have to do with “I guess other people have a lot of money”. Very weird thing to be concerned about.
Personally I didn’t care about the eclipse until recently. Then I realized then when the next one happens in North America, my son will be in his 20s and I will be in my 60s. I got the idea that it will be cool to (G-d willing) see that one together and remember how we saw this one together 20 years earlier.
It happened to be that we had family we can stay with in the path of totality but even if it cost me an extra few hundred to do this, I would find it a good use of funds.
A couple of other things the people commenting about people having a lot of money might be overlooking:
1. My guess is that a lot of the people are treating this as a vacation and the money for it comes from foregoing some other vacation trip that they would have taken this year.
2. It doesn't have to be expensive to see an eclipse. My trip to see the 2017 US eclipse had these costs:
• $50 for a place to stay for the day of the eclipse and the day before.
It was at a farm where the farmer had converted one big field into an overnight parking area for people who were going to sleep in their cars, an adjacent big field into a place for people who wanted to park and set up tents to sleep in, and another adjacent field into a place for food and souvenir vendors and entertainers. They had set up a ton of portable toilets in all three of those areas, and had shuttle buses running a loop through all three areas.
The $50 was for a spot in the "sleep in your car" field.
• Whatever it cost to operate my car for the ~600 mile round trip.
• Maybe $10 for a small PC case fan, which I connected to a small solar panel I already had. I could then put the solar panel on the car roof, open a car window just enough to wedge the fan in, and have a nice breeze in the car. (The 2017 eclipse was in August and temperatures were expected to be in the mid-80℉ to 90℉ range where I saw it).
I try. But seriously, it's a very weird reaction. For example, a lot of content on here is about people nerding out on something deep - how would you feel if everyone started responding "I guess people have a lot of free time..."
Yes it's implied that people will spend time and money differently than how you would. So what?
Personally I didn’t care about the eclipse until recently. Then I realized then when the next one happens in North America, my son will be in his 20s and I will be in my 60s. I got the idea that it will be cool to (G-d willing) see that one together and remember how we saw this one together 20 years earlier.
It happened to be that we had family we can stay with in the path of totality but even if it cost me an extra few hundred to do this, I would find it a good use of funds.