A handful of guests booked yurts around five years ago at the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center for the eclipse. At the end of 2023, Visit Bloomington estimated 3,000 lodging beds in Monroe County. They project more than 150,000 visitors.
(Devan Ridgway / WFIU-WTIU)
More than 100,000 visitors are expected to descend upon Bloomington for next month’s total eclipse of the sun. That’s far more than local hotels can accommodate.
Hotel rooms are still available, at a premium. Of The Graduate Hotel’s 150 rooms, less than 40 are still unbooked for the eclipse.
Assistant General Manager Matt Hazen expects guests to choose The Graduate for its proximity of campus and downtown as well as the eclipse-tailored amenities it will provide.
The Graduate Hotel is currently at around 75 percent capacity for the day of the eclipse. Other Bloomington hotels are completely sold out. (Devan Ridgway, WTIU)
“Obviously, some guests will choose to go to the stadium or do other events here in town. But we're hoping the ones that do choose to stay here with us will really get a holistic experience out of the whole thing,” he said.
The Graduate caters toward experience, with themed rooms and entertainment planned on its Jack and Diane Terrace. At 3:04 p.m. when the sun is eclipsed by the moon, guests can watch southward from its rooftop high above Kirkwood.
“There'll be a little bit more of a viewing party that we’ll have out there: countdown clocks, music playing, food that our chef will create,” Hazen said.
Guests at The Graduate who really want to immerse themselves in Hoosier lore can book a Stranger Things suite. The show is set in the fictional town of Hawkins, Ind. (Devan Ridgway, WTIU)
Rooms are at least $600 a night with a minimum stay requirement for the weekend before as well as the Monday of the eclipse. On an ordinary week, rooms start around $160. Hazen said the higher prices are comparable to an IU home football weekend.
Hotel availability continues to decrease, but the number of Airbnb’s actually went up in the past week. Bloomington residents such as Pam and Dan Hendricks are opening their home for out-of-towners.
“We both heard that there was a lack of lodging, and we're familiar with Airbnb and thought we would put it on there,” Dan said.
Dan and Pam Hendricks are listing their kids' old rooms on Airbnb for the eclipse. They've hosted in the past and say they enjoy having guests. (Ethan Sandweiss, WTIU)
Right now, there are around 100 Airbnbs in Monroe County available for those dates, many listed as first-time rentals. For a single bed in an occupied house, it’s hard to find anything less than $200 a night, while an entire home can go for over $3,000.
The Hendricks family used to host travel nurses in their kids’ old rooms, but it has been a while. The idea is to put some money toward a vacation with their kids and grandkids.
“If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. If it does, it's like oh, okay, that's nice,” Dan said.
“But we’re still going on vacation,” Pam interjected. “Sorry!”
Then there are eclipse-gazers who don’t want to spend any money and are willing to sleep outside. Hoosier National Forest’s Blackwell Campground filled up with reservations in early March.
The Blackwell Campground is located in the Charles C. Deam Wilderness. Guests can camp where they wish here, but sites with amenities have all been reserved. (Lucinda Larnach, WTIU)
The site is managed federally by the U.S. Forest Service. Public affairs specialist Marion Mason gestured to park workers behind her painting white lines in the grass.
“Our recreation staff is preparing the Blackwell campground for the eclipse event,” she said. “They are laying out campsites and putting numbers on them so that folks with reservations, when they arrive, will know exactly where to go and what space is theirs.”
They’re not the only ones booked up. State-run Paynetown Recreation Area at Lake Monroe and the campground at Brown County State Park are fully booked, as are most campgrounds run by the Department of Natural Resources in the zone of totality.
Even on a cold day in mid-March, campers pitched a tent in the Hoosier National Forest. The campgrounds are free to the public. (Lucinda Larnach, WTIU)
In the national forest, intrepid travelers can try dispersed camping, setting up tents outside developed campgrounds with no amenities provided. No reservation is required, and Mason said there are some compelling reasons to experience the eclipse in nature.
“You might see birds going to roost, you might hear frogs and owls start making noises like they typically do at night,” she said. “That's going to be something that you wouldn't probably experience in a city setting.”
For some, the woods just are not quiet enough. Bloomington’s Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center rents four yurts to visitors seeking quiet repose. They’re only $130 a night, but Geshe Lobsang Kunga said visitors booked them for the eclipse five years ago.
Tenpa Phuntsok (left) and Geshe Lobsand Kunga (right) are planning a prayer ceremony for the day of the eclipse. (Devan Ridgway, WTIU)
“It is a good idea to rent it way back,” Kunga said through his translator Tenpa Phuntsok. “We hope that they will enjoy our space here on that day.”
The center is partnering with Indiana Forest Alliance to guide visitors in both the natural and cultural environment. Guests can join the monks in a Medicine Buddha Puja: a prayer service to relieve sentient beings of suffering. Kunga said eclipses have a powerful significance in his faith.
“According to Buddhist philosophy, it is really kind of like the union or the meeting of the sun and moon, which is very related to our body and inner wind,” he said. “Therefore, there is very much an increase of human strength and power.”
Guests can rent Mongolian-style yurts at the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center. Phuntsok said they're popular with writers and other people seeking seclusion. (Devan Ridgway, WTIU)
As availability decreases across the county, prices will increase for a time, said Mike McAfee from Visit Bloomington. But he expects prices to drop as hosts try to fill their last remaining rooms in the final weeks before the eclipse.
The eclipse is projected to be the largest tourism event in state history, but it’s difficult to predict the sizes of the crowds before taking factors such as weather into account.
