Astronomy tourism: Celestial and terrestrial areas of interest

While Captain James Cook sails on the exciting discoveries of the history of geography and astronomy under a starry sky with his Endeavor – effort ship, humanity, which has directed its horizon of curiosity and discovery to Mars in the first quarter of the 21st century, continues its adventure of knowing the universe with another effort – Perseverance Spacecraft. With this endless curiosity and discovery motivation, at the beginning of the 21st century, new types of tourism branches emerged. Especially the more educated and experienced travelers/tourists demand knowledge-rich experiences, so as a competitive element, the tourism industry specializes and develops itself to meet the needs in this regard. Humanity's natural interest in the universe, the desire to experience and explore has turned into a brand-new travel motivation: Astronomy Tourism… Drawing attention to areas away from light pollution; as an interdisciplinary type of tourism, Astrotourism is supported by science and art branches such as archaeoastronomy, ethnoastronomy and astrophotography and in its simplest form it is defined as a kind of eco-tourism activity towards the sky. In the world, with this perspective; megalithic structures, rock paintings in caves, symbols; Astronomically and Geographically Advantageous Places, Solar and Lunar Eclipses, Meteor Events, Constellations, Comets, Sunrises and Sunsets, Polar Lights; observatories, astronomical clocks, Dark Sky Parks, modern observatories and planetariums, as well as astrocamps, museums, astronomy festivities and space tourism; they offer a fascinating experience for today's people and create a strong motivation for travel. Considering the richness of natural and rural areas in Turkey together with the spatial traces of Astronomy Tourism, the importance of our developable potential in this tourism field is undeniably high. Based on the findings, observations and literature review, the concept of Sky Friendly City and the Istanbul Astronomy Tourism Route have been created for the development of astronomy tourism in our country. Keywords: Astronomy Tourism, Astrotourist, Celestial Ecotourism, Special-Curiousity Tourism, Light Pollution, Dark Sky Parks, Sky Friendly City, Astronomically and Geographically Advantageous Places, UNESCO World Astronomy Heritage Sites, Space Tourism