Aurora man turns farm into eclipse watch party location amid filling hotels and rentals
By Derek Heid
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AURORA, Colorado (WKBW) — The total solar eclipse is just under two months away. With hotels and short-term rentals filling up, Wilson Curry in the Town of Aurora has created his own total solar eclipse watch party location at his house for 100-200 people.
As we showed you last month, finding a hotel for a reasonable rate may already be out of the question, with prices of hotels in Niagara Falls rising above $800 per night.
If you’re thinking “maybe I’ll stay at a campground instead,every open spot at a New York State Park has been booked since the summer.
“If you haven’t booked, you’re probably out of luck,” said NYS Parks Spokesperson, Angela Berti. “I’d like to say they went faster than we anticipated, but we heard the demand, Governor Kathy Hochul had heard the demand for camping.”
She said all 100 of their individual campsites across Erie and Niagara Counties have been reserved.
“We are anticipating a lot of excitement, this is once in a lifetime event,” Angela said. “There’s never a bad spot at any New York State Park to see an eclipse.”
“My understanding is that there’s a lot of places that are already booked and there’s no rooms available at the inns,” Wilson said. “We have a lot of space available if you want to be outside.”
With the eclipse going directly over the Town of Aurora, Wilson’s land is prime property to watch the solar eclipse happen.
“We might get 100 or 200 people,” Wilson said. “We will have to see what happens.”
Wilson is one of many people across the country to post his property on HipCamp, an Airbnb type website for campers.
However, rather than camping, for $25 you can park as long as you need at Wilson’s property and watch the eclipse in the open field at his house.
“I think people can come in the day before if they choose to, if they have some way of staying overnight that doesn’t involve setting up a camp,” said Wilson. “How long they stay is up to them.”
Roughly a dozen people have already booked their spot, and Wilson expects even more soon.
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