This Florida National Park Is One of the Least-visited and Most Beautiful in the U.S. — and I Camped There to See Its Incredibly Clear Night Sky

As the remnants of Tropical Storm Alex shook my tent, I wondered if the decision to camp in Dry Tortugas National Park — a remote chain of seven islands about 70 miles west of the Florida Keys — had been a mistake. It was early June. The sandpipers had already migrated, and the laughing gulls were long gone. Spring was over, and it was the edge of hurricane season. 

I had come to this place seeking something like closure. My father was the one who told me about the Dry Tortugas. When he took me and my little brother Nicholas stargazing near our home in South Carolina, he would tell us stories about the constellations. In between tales of heroes and mythological creatures, Dad would talk about pirates. Sometimes their exploits would take place in the Dry Tortugas, which he referred to as “the end of the world.”

My father was a Black man who had reached the limits corporate America put on his ambitions. Looking back, I understand that he was trying to figure out how to live unencumbered, like the adventurers in his stories. He couldn’t tell me and Nicholas what that freedom felt like, because we were still children, so instead he told us about people who guided their ships — and their lives — by the stars. As well as plot twists about shipwrecks and lost treasure, he made sure we knew our constellations and could navigate roads using the stars at night. 

Snorkeling is different from my watersport of choice: diving, which requires complete immersion. I found the sensation of swimming on top of the water, caught between the sky and the sea, somehow discombobulating. I panicked at regular intervals, spitting, sputtering, and apologizing profusely. Holly would pause and wait for me to regroup. She explained that snorkeling could be a form of meditation, and encouraged me to slow my breathing down and take note of my heart rate. She reminded me that we were on an island in the middle of nowhere, where the time passes differently. I resisted the urge to struggle. I realized so many things are out of my control: the weather conditions, the power of the waves, the passage of time. 

Eventually I found the weightlessness Holly described, and we made our way around the island, kicking our fins slowly as bar jacks, gray snappers, and silverside fish wove between trenches in the reef. I spotted crabs and spiny lobsters, then a large goliath grouper. I left the water with a new sense of stillness.

Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León is credited with naming the Dry Tortugas: in 1513, he led the first known European expedition to the area he referred to as La Florida, which roughly translates to “place of flowers.” On the journey, he passed a chain of islands and dubbed them Las Tortugas, after the large population of sea turtles living in the surrounding waters. (Later they were called Dry Tortugas on nautical charts to indicate that no fresh water was available there.)

Endangered loggerhead, hawksbill, and green turtles still make their home in the national park. From March through September, almost 80,000 sooty terns and roughly 5,000 brown noddies reside on the smaller islands, building their nests and tending to their newly hatched young. 

Travelers come to the national park to observe the birds, swim and snorkel among the colorful coral reefs, and visit the historic Fort Jefferson on Garden Key. Made up of 16 million bricks with more than 2,000 archways, this structure is the largest all-masonry fort in the Western Hemisphere. From 1861 to 1873, the fort served as a maximum-security prison — four of the men convicted of aiding John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of President Lincoln were held there. Abandoned by the army in 1874, it fell into disuse and was named a National Monument in 1935; Congress established Dry Tortugas National Park in 1992. Being so hard to get to, Dry Tortugas is one of the least visited locations in the national park system.

I was in search of something else: the night sky. Ancient watchers scanned the stars for patterns, a way to make sense of the world. I wanted to do the same, to complete my interrupted trip with my father and figure out what the stars could tell me. 

When evening came, I told Holly about my plan and the reason behind it. She asked if I wanted company. I knew that there was a rare cosmic phenomenon that we would be able to see just before dawn: a planetary alignment during which Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are all supposed to be visible, weather permitting. It’s something that happens every 18 years; the last time it happened was in 2004. 

We set our alarms, promising to rendezvous at the picnic table with a telescope and binoculars. Unable to sleep, I emerged from my tent several times: at 10 p.m., at 2:18 a.m., and then again around 4:30. Each time the sky was stunning and strange. I used my StarSense Explorer and SkyView apps, which don’t need cell service, to identify the stars I was unfamiliar with. Antares, Menkent, Heze, Alderamin, Deneb, Vega, and Polaris appeared, as well as the Hercules Cluster. The Southern Cross constellation, which is only visible from the southernmost sections of the United States during the spring months, barely broke the horizon. I spied the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope. 

Holly joined me at the appointed time, and we talked about life: what my father missed, what she hopes her children will get to see. She pointed out how proud Dad would be of me for coming to the “edge of the world” in an attempt to understand who I was becoming. 

The stars receded, and sunrise, with its hints of pink and blue, began to break. I sat by the sea and listened to the water lapping at the posts under the dock house. I decided to walk to the top of the ramparts to get the best view of the coming day, and heard the water trickling between the bricks of the fort. In the distance, I could see the lighthouse on Loggerhead Key, the largest of the Dry Tortugas.

After a while, I returned to my campsite to pack up. On the ferry back to Key West, the sky and sea were the same shade of blue. But instead of the sensation of being suspended between two environments — a feeling I struggled with in the water — now I was ready to face the world that awaited me. 

A version of this story first appeared in the February 2024 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline "Written in the Stars."