national geographic black travel across america

TV Review: National Geographic’s “Black Travel Across America” is a Unique Twist on the Classic Travel Show

There are all kinds of travel shows out there, providing viewers with all kinds of tips and tricks for their future travel plans and vacations. National Geographic has a new twist on that classic formula, providing a new special for Black travelers in America.

National Geographic’s Black Travel Across America follows travel consultant, Martinique Lewis, as she embarks on a journey to visit historically listed Green Book locations and modern Black travel destinations.

National Geographic is known for producing incredible informative and entertaining content. This new special certainly leans more toward the former, providing an American history lesson on what led to the creation of “The Negro Motorist Green Book,”a guide to safe travel for the African American community from 1936 to 1966. The guidebook provided a list of hotels, restaurants and service stations from Connecticut to California that served African American patrons during segregation.

That history then provides the unique twist for this travel show as Lewis visits locations listed in the Green Book in New York, Kansas City and Denver, as well as some new locations with cultural significance. With that history backing up the concept for the show, it makes each location feel that much more important and viewers really get the sense that they are seeing key pieces of American history.

Unfortunately, the show itself does feel a bit rushed and messy at times. With multiple interviews taking place in each city, it tends to jump back and forth between them, rather than just finishing up at one location before moving on to another. Perhaps this concept would have benefited from being spread out into a limited series, as opposed to a one-hour special.That way, more time could have been spent at each cit and more locations could have even been thrown in.

Those minor flaws do not distract from the educational value of the special however. On top of the history lesson, Black Travel Across America  provides viewers who may be planning some travel themselves with a great way to find historical and culturally rich places to visit. Again, more time in each city would have been beneficial, but with at least two historically significant locations in each of these great cities, it’s a starting point would-be travelers.

Overall, Black Travel Across America  is a good, informative watch. It takes a format we’ve seen hundreds of times and puts a new twist on it, steeping the special in history and culture. If nothing else, it’s a great way to see some new locations you may want to visit on your next trip.

Black Travel Across America  airs on February 6th at 10 PM ET on National Geographic.

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Black Travel Across America

Travel Consultant, Martinique Lewis, embarks on a journey to visit historically listed Green Book locations and modern black travel destinations. Travel Consultant, Martinique Lewis, embarks on a journey to visit historically listed Green Book locations and modern black travel destinations. Travel Consultant, Martinique Lewis, embarks on a journey to visit historically listed Green Book locations and modern black travel destinations.

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• WHAT TO WATCH ON DISNEY+

What’s New On Disney+ | Black Travel Across America (US)

It’s Friday and time to take a look at what’s new on Disney+ in the United States today, which includes a new documentary from National Geographic.

Here’s the rundown:

Black Travel Across America>

Travel Consultant Martinique Lewis embarks on a journey to visit historically listed Green Book locations and modern black travel destinations.

Blow Your Mind

Blow Your Mind is the owner’s manual to the most complex machine ever developed. Your brain. You might think you’re aware of what your brain’s up to, but the truth is we’re all just passengers along for the ride. In this fascinating and hilarious show, Robert Llewellyn and neuroscience expert, Bruce Hood, use mind-melting real-life experiments, hidden camera stunts, try- at-home tests and top notch animations to uncover the storm of unconscious processes that make up the human mind. On Blow Your Mind the whole world’s a lab and you, the unsuspecting members of the public, are the perfect test subjects.

Tini: The New Life of Violetta

Violetta returns from tour to some unexpected news. After an eternal summer in a beautiful village on the Italian coast, Violetta embarks on a journey of self-knowledge that leads to an artistic, musical and personal awakening.

What are you looking forward to watching on Disney+ this weekend? Let us know on social media!

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July 5, 2023

Host of ‘Black Travel Across America’ Launches App To Support Black Businesses In Vacation Hotspots

The host of National Geographic’s Black Travel Across America, Martinique Lewis, created an app to connect Black travelers. The ABC Travel GreenBook launched on June 2 to help to highlight Black communities and culture for those exploring new places. 

Based on the best-selling book by a similar name, Victor Hugo Green’s ‘The Negro Motorist Greenbook,’ Lewis’ travel app includes a database of Black businesses, events, and communities in different popular vacation spots. Not only does it have information for six different continents, but it also has a system to keep travelers safe while choosing events. ABC Travel Greenbook allows real people who have traveled to the places to rate and provide information on where they’ve visited. Lewis says the system bolsters the app’s ability to showcase places and businesses that aren’t usually advertised. 

Lewis told Travel Noire, “I love the recommend a business feature! Since the release, users have been wearing it out. With over 20,000 listings worldwide, there are plenty of Black travel businesses that we missed, like Sabor Cubano in Florence, Italy. But because of users, it’s now included in the app! I also adore the homepage. It gives you Black itineraries to follow in some of your favorite destinations, tells you about upcoming Black events around the world, and recommends Black-owned businesses we’ve visited and want you to enjoy. Definitely support these businesses by leaving a review after you visited so people know it was awesome,” Lewis stated. “For non-Black travelers, I want them to use the app and help amplify Black-owned businesses to their networks.”

Following the app’s drop, Lewis described the initial responses as overwhelmingly positive. 

“The reception from all travelers has been crazy! I had a goal of 2,000 downloads and 1,000 subscribers, [and we’re] over that in less than two weeks. I remain grateful! I’ve asked for feedback, and everyone loves it!”

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In a time of racial prejudice, price gouging, and physical violence, safe travel was all but inaccessible to many Americans during the early 20 th century. Victor Hugo Green, pulling from his experiences as a Harlem-based postal worker, wrote a guide that would revolutionize travel for the Black community: The Negro Motorist Green Book . Published annually from 1936 to 1966, this travel guidebook provided a list of hotels, restaurants, and service stations from Connecticut to California that served Black patrons, some of which still stand today.

In this new special from National Geographic, travel consultant Martinique Lewis embarks on a coast-to-coast road trip to visit historically listed Green Book locations and modern Black travel destinations, hearing from local experts and exploring the Black businesses and safe havens that boomed in this time of racial strife. Lewis is an award-winning diversity in travel consultant and creator of The ABC Travel Greenbook , the premiere resource connecting travelers to the African diaspora globally.

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• Bossip Exclusive

Martinique Lewis Talks 'Black Travel Across America' [Exclusive]

Gifted globetrotter martinique lewis talks ‘black travel across america’ & the billion-dollar black travel movement [exclusive].

Black travelers are exploring more than ever and a documentary is spotlighting the billion-dollar movement and Green Book locations.

Source: National Geographic for Disney / Victoria Donfor

Black Travel Across America is highlighting historically listed Green Book locations via its host, award-winning travel consultant, and President of the Black Travel Alliance, Martinique Lewis.

Throughout the documentary that’s streaming on Disney+ and Hulu, Lewis embarks on a journey to visit historically listed Green Book locations as well as modern Black travel destinations.

She interviews experts to give the locations historical context and shines a spotlight on hidden gems.

She also represents the Black Travel Movement that’s disrupting the travel industry by flipping the underrepresentation of Black people in the travel sphere and encouraging travel to locations usually not marketed to African-Americans.

Below the gifted globetrotter tells BOSSIP about Black Travel Across Americ a and her journey from penning the ABC Travel Greenbook to hosting this exploratory documentary.

How did your start as a Black traveler lead y ou to where you are today?

 So I’ve been a traveler since I can remember, but what happened was I started to notice all of these beautiful Black photos through Travel Noire. And this was, I don’t know, back in 2011, 2012. Travel Noire was one of the first people to show Black luxury travel. So you would see Black people in Cappadocia with the flying balloons in the back, or you would start to see Black people in the Maldives, or you would start to see Africa shown in such a great light like in Kenya, Lamu, Kenya or in South Africa. And this is the first time we’re seeing ourselves reflected, looking amazing, being absolutely fabulous, having the same type of money that white people have to spend, even though we’re never seeing these images on a larger scale. So once I learned about Travel Noire, I’m thinking, “Well, I travel all the time.” And then I started to work with a company called Black Travel Journey, and that was in 2017. And Black Travel Journey was my first introduction to really be able to cultivate minds because I was running the social media and I was the director of partnerships. So not only was I being able to cultivate minds of new Black travelers who were coming, or Black travelers who had already been traveling, but now I can cultivate the minds of the industry to let the industry know Black people are out here, we’re traveling and here are the photos to prove it. But not only that, here are the comments that lets you know the reason why your destination is doing so well is because a Black person went there and they posted this photo and they got other Black people interested in going.

  And so Black Travel Journey then led me on another journey where I created the ABC Travel Green Book and I pitched it and I won the New Voices competition, which a lot of people might know. But the New Voices campaign was a campaign put out to help Black entrepreneurs, and I won that competition. So then I started on my own journey and then that’s what led me to now Nomadness, where Evita Robinson, who is literally the mother of Black travel, she started the first Black travel group, she allowed me to use her platform to share Black travel history. And this was something that had never been done before. So every February I will go through all of these facts, 28 Days of Black Travel Facts, and this is where we’re talking about the Pullman Porters, we’re talking about Victor and Alma Green, we’re talking about Nicodemus, Kansas, we’re talking about Chicken Bone Beach. And I’m letting all these people know this is our history, even though nobody has ever shared it. And people were like, “Wow, we never knew because nobody told us that there was a Black-owned airport in Columbia, Maryland. Nobody told us that there used to be this Black-owned airlines out of Atlanta, Georgia.” But I was telling people these facts. And so once she allowed me to do it, I then broke off into my own thing and continued those stories. So I’ve really been fortunate to not only build a name for myself in the Black travel space, but in the travel space in general because of the information and the passion I have for Black travel in general.

Absolutely, and  I’m glad you brought up the ABC Travel Green Book. Congratulations on your success with that.

Thank you.  

I think it’s so interesting that there’s this time with Black Travel Across Americ a because you are visiting real-life Green Book locations in the US. Can you break down to our readers what that really means? What are the Green Book locations?

The Negro Motorist Green Book is a travel resource that was created for Black people from 1936 to 1966 by Victor and Alma Green. And the reason it was created was because Black people could not travel up and down Route 66 safely without knowing where to stop. They did not have the privilege of just pulling up into a Holiday Inn and saying, “Hey, I would like to buy a room for a night.” Because a lot of people were racist, they would be discriminated against. So either they would price gouge them, a white family would come in, they would charge them $30 a night, they would charge a Black family $330 a night, or they would completely try to run them off and literally try to harm them to a point where they could literally lose their life when driving the highways and byways.

So Victor Hugo Green gave us this amazing resource that allowed you to know where you could stop as a Black traveler, where there was a hotel that was Black owned where there was a guest house that was open for Black travelers, what service stations would service you if you were Black, where you can stop and get food. A lot of people don’t realize shoebox lunches come from the fact that we could not stop, we had to drive throughout the night. That’s why we had the fried chicken because fried chicken is either good, whether it’s hot or cold. So you have to have these things to help you when you were traveling to see your family from Tennessee and travel out to California. So Green Book locations where the places where African Americans could stop and be safe when they were traveling the highways.

Hit the flip for more from our Martinique Lewis interview!

Tell us about some of the Green Book locations that you visited in Black Travel Across America and about the Black businesses spotlighted.

Right. So one of the main reasons that I was chosen before this is because I created my own Green Book in 2020, which helps you locate Black-owned businesses and Black communities across six out of seven continents. So what we did was we took the old Green Book locations and then we took any Black-owned businesses that were in my Green Book in that same location present day. So you will see, we went to Five Points District in Denver, Colorado where we stopped at my great uncle’s places where there is still a theater there. So that was his theater. There is a hotel that was on that same block. He also had a liquor store that was on that same block.

But then we go around the corner to the present day where you find TeaLee’s Tea Shop, which she is in my Green Book, but she specifically positioned herself there because there wasn’t any African Americans in this historically African American neighborhood anymore. So she wanted her presence to be felt and she wanted to continue the legacy. So you’ll see places like that. We went to Harlem, which everybody knows there’s a rich Black history there because of the Harlem Renaissance. But you’ll see specifically The Edge Harlem, a restaurant where if you went back 100 years ago, it was a meeting place for amazing giants like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. So we meshed the past with the present and show how it will affect the future. So it’s incredibly exciting and I’m excited for people to see.

What do you say to people who still have some hangups about traveling across America? So for me, I’m a Georgia Peach and there are certain parts of Georgia that as a Black person, I’ve been cautioned against visiting. 

Do you think that some people still should be a little nervous about traveling to certain places or should they just trust that it’s okay because it’s 2023 and we have resources like this available?

Regardless that we have resources, your head always got to be on a swivel no matter if you are in the United States or anywhere. And unfortunately, there are still some sun down towns, even in 2023, people can’t believe it. But I’m like, “Yes, this is the reality still of America. And yes, you do need resources like the Green Book.” I can tell people all the time, “Never stop in Pigsty, Alabama.” People are like, “Why?” I’m like, “Because they will look at you like you are crazy. And they would tell you the last Negro that’s been through Pigsty, Alabama was Martin Luther King and we ran him out of here.”

So there are still definitely places where we cannot go as African Americans. And that’s why you do still need a modern-day Green Book . People are like, “It’s 2023.” That does not matter. There are still some places that if you don’t feel comfortable, definitely don’t stop. But also be able to take the ABC Travel Green Book or now the ABC Travel Green Book app, which is available in the Apple Store, as well as Google Play for you to know what the closest Black-owned business is to you, so that if you need to feel safe, you can go and find somebody who looks like you. So yes, we definitely still do need a resource. Yes, you definitely still need to travel with caution as a Black traveler anywhere you go, but just as a traveler in general. There will always be things there.

But the one thing that I like about the book that the app doesn’t have is I’m actually able to write when you get to a place what my experience has been. So I tell you, when I went to Iceland, unfortunately, somebody called me a monkey when I was walking down the street. And these are things for you to know. Or it tells you the last racial incident that has been reported was in 2019 where a Black Zimbabwean woman was assaulted. It tells you these things. But again, that can happen anywhere in the world where you are. We don’t want it to keep you from traveling because you still can travel, but that’s why you need resources like this. And there are more resources out there. I tell people all the time, if you go anywhere, look up on YouTube Black in that place. And also look up Facebook group resources. If you’re going to Australia and New Zealand, there’s brothers and sisters in Australia and New Zealand. There’s brothers and sisters of Kuwait. There’s brothers and sisters in South Korea. Look up those Facebook groups and ask people questions if you have any questions, or ask me. But there are resources out there to help us be safe no matter where we go.

Lastly, there was this tweet that went viral and I would just love to get your opinion on it. I t read, “Don’t let the internet fool you. Solo traveling is low-key boring asf.”

dnt let the internet fool you, solo traveling is lowkey boring asf 😭✌🏿 — ? (@aliyahInterlude) February 22, 2023

You are well-traveled and I know you do solo travel. What are your thoughts on that, especially as the host of Black Travel Across America ?

Yeah, I tell people all the time there’s nothing like solo travel. And the reason is because you get to learn yourself. Who am I in this different country when I can’t speak the language, I’m trying to navigate, I want to try the food, I have nobody to go out with? It makes you realize whether or not you’re comfortable with yourself. And if you’re not comfortable with yourself, that is a you problem that you have to fix. Because solo travel allows you to do that. It allows you to understand who you are and how to make critical decisions in the time of adversity. Are you friendly so that you meet somebody else? When you see another Black person, do you go up to them? Do your research first if there’s a group for women, like Black women in Amsterdam, the group that they have for Black women who are coming to Amsterdam, if you don’t know anybody, you can just go out with them. So for me, solo trial has been so powerful because it’s allowed me to meet some of my greatest friends on earth today. And I say that Amsterdam Black Women group, because that’s exactly what I did. I was traveling solo to Amsterdam. I met a phenomenal woman named Lynee Green who was running Amsterdam Black Women and she is the person who introduced me to the Black Dutch community in Amsterdam, which I didn’t know Black people were there like they were. So if I didn’t go on that trip just because I was scared, because I was traveling solo, I would’ve never met her. I would’ve never been to Reggae Rita’s. I would’ve never went to Herstel, which is a Black-owned host in Amsterdam. I would’ve never taken Jennifer Tash’s Black Amsterdam tour where you learn that Black people built Amsterdam.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Black Travel Show host (@marty_sandiego)

But this is because I did a solo trip. And I always tell people, “When you are on a solo trip, you get to hear yourself think.” And this is something that doesn’t happen often. We never think about how the fact that you cannot sit with your thoughts because you’re a parent or you have a significant other, you get to hear yourself think. You get to really, really be grateful for that time and space that you’re in. You don’t have no time constraints. You don’t have to meet up with nobody. You don’t have to go to breakfast, lunch, or dinner anytime. You can stay in a hotel room for a whole day and watch TV if you want to because you’re by yourself. So yes, solo travel isn’t boring unless you’re boring. So whoever wrote that must be boring.  

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How Black travelers are reclaiming Portugal

Despite its role in the birth of the transatlantic slave trade, Lisbon is drawing Black Americans looking to escape racism at home.

In Lisbon ’s bairro das novas nações , the neighborhood of new nations, each street is named after a former Portuguese colony: Rua de Angola, Rua de Moçambique, Rua da Guiné, Rua de Cabo Verde.

“Ah, Cabo Verde,” I say to my guide, Djuzé Neves, “your homeland.” Though that’s not entirely accurate—Neves was born and raised in Lisbon—his parents hail from Santiago Island, the largest in the Cape Verdean archipelago. Climate refugees fleeing drought, they found solace in Lisbon’s embrace.

For Neves, this neighborhood embodies more than just geography; it’s a beacon of community-driven resilience. As a board member of Batoto Yetu , an organization nurturing African heritage among underprivileged youth, Neves invests his time in cultivating cultural pride.

I’ve come to Lisbon exactly for neighborhoods like novas nações, a liberating space to escape the rising tide of racial and political stress I’ve been experiencing in the United States. I’m not alone.

On social media, countless Black travelers share tales of feeling marginalized and impotent in the face of systemic racism and police brutality, prompting a surge in overseas travel in search of historical significance, cultural diversity, and a relaxed atmosphere.

It’s not new, this practice of African Americans traveling to foreign lands for a respite from the challenges and frustrations that come with being Black in America. In the 1920s and ’30s, the Soviet Union became an attractive place to visit and explore because it promised a raceless, classless society . In Lisbon and other cities such as Paris , Dubai , and Amsterdam , travelers find memorials and tours that acknowledge the trauma of the slave trade and programs that explore cultural heritage.

Where the slave trade started

I meet Madisyn Brown , a Black 22-year-old video essayist, on the flight from New York to Lisbon. She tells me that her great-great-grandmother was from Portugal. “But no one in my family has been to Portugal despite that connection,” she says.

On the final day of her trip, I reconnect with Brown for a drink on Avenida da Liberdade, a sun-drenched, tree-lined street with wide sidewalks featuring black, white, and sometimes gray limestones mosaics, called calçada Portuguesa . Avenida da Liberdade is Lisbon’s version of Paris’ Champs-Élysées, London’s Regent’s Street, and Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive.

( Here’s how Black travel has evolved since the Green Book .)

Brown says her time in Lisbon has been magical. “I felt like a normal person walking through the world,” she says. “I never felt like I didn’t belong. I’m going to miss the positive energy here. America can be a really tough place to live.”

The irony isn’t lost on me—seeking solace in a city with ties to the very institution of slavery that shaped our history. We’ve learned to associate many European nations with colonialism, but Americans are not as familiar with Lusophone culture and history.

Many of us were unaware that Portugal was not just a participant in colonialism; it pioneered the trade in chattel slavery. In 1444, the small nation began transporting sub-Saharan Africans to Europe. In 1526, Portugal transported its first shipment of enslaved people to Brazil, effectively launching the transatlantic slave trade.

( Families are leading a new wave for Black travelers .)

Yet, perhaps our modern “return” to Portugal signifies a crucial step in healing, a reclaiming of collective joy and freedom.

Toby Thompkins, a recent ex-pat from New York, sees Lisbon as a place of reconciliation. “I think that’s what a lot of Black Americans are tapping into,” he says, adding there’s an openness to dialogue and a sense of infinite possibilities, reminiscent of America in the 1970s—a time of acknowledging and confronting racism.  

How to experience Lisbon  

To address its role in the slave trade, Lisbon’s government, in association with Batoto Yetu, has erected more than 20 historical street markers to honor the contributions of Africans and their descendants in 2024.  

Travelers can find the plaques near the riverside Terreiro do Paço , where enslaved people disembarked from the ships that carried them there from Africa, or in places such as Rossio Square , which, for centuries, has been a traditional gathering place for Black people in Lisbon. It is also the location of Igreja de São Domingos , the church where enslaved Africans were taken for their requisite baptism.

( Here’s why you see swallows everywhere in Portugal .)

In the Largo São Domingos neighborhood, which has a sizable African population, a stone bust was unveiled of Paulino Jose da Conceiçao, a formerly enslaved African who emigrated to Portugal from Brazil in 1832. Da Conceiçao, also known as Pai Paulino, was a social justice advocate and worked to improve the working and living conditions of Africans in Lisbon. Also in the works is a memorial to the victims of slavery, the first of its sort there.

In the coastal city of Lagos, in the Algarve region of southern Portugal, about three hours by train from Lisbon, visitors can explore a small museum dedicated to the history of slavery in the town. The museum, Mercado de Escravos , Market of Slaves, is situated on the site where the very first group of enslaved Africans was sold.

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• AFRICAN AMERICANS
• CULTURAL TOURISM

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The huge solar storm is keeping power grid and satellite operators on edge

Geoff Brumfiel

Willem Marx

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of solar flares early Saturday afternoon. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there have been measurable effects and impacts from the geomagnetic storm. Solar Dynamics Observatory hide caption

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of solar flares early Saturday afternoon. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there have been measurable effects and impacts from the geomagnetic storm.

Planet Earth is getting rocked by the biggest solar storm in decades – and the potential effects have those people in charge of power grids, communications systems and satellites on edge.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there have been measurable effects and impacts from the geomagnetic storm that has been visible as aurora across vast swathes of the Northern Hemisphere. So far though, NOAA has seen no reports of major damage.

The Picture Show

Photos: see the northern lights from rare, solar storm.

There has been some degradation and loss to communication systems that rely on high-frequency radio waves, NOAA told NPR, as well as some preliminary indications of irregularities in power systems.

"Simply put, the power grid operators have been busy since yesterday working to keep proper, regulated current flowing without disruption," said Shawn Dahl, service coordinator for the Boulder, Co.-based Space Weather Prediction Center at NOAA.

NOAA Issues First Severe Geomagnetic Storm Watch Since 2005

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"Satellite operators are also busy monitoring spacecraft health due to the S1-S2 storm taking place along with the severe-extreme geomagnetic storm that continues even now," Dahl added, saying some GPS systems have struggled to lock locations and offered incorrect positions.

NOAA's GOES-16 satellite captured a flare erupting occurred around 2 p.m. EDT on May 9, 2024.

As NOAA had warned late Friday, the Earth has been experiencing a G5, or "Extreme," geomagnetic storm . It's the first G5 storm to hit the planet since 2003, when a similar event temporarily knocked out power in part of Sweden and damaged electrical transformers in South Africa.

The NOAA center predicted that this current storm could induce auroras visible as far south as Northern California and Alabama.

Extreme (G5) geomagnetic conditions have been observed! pic.twitter.com/qLsC8GbWus — NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (@NWSSWPC) May 10, 2024

Around the world on social media, posters put up photos of bright auroras visible in Russia , Scandinavia , the United Kingdom and continental Europe . Some reported seeing the aurora as far south as Mallorca, Spain .

The source of the solar storm is a cluster of sunspots on the sun's surface that is 17 times the diameter of the Earth. The spots are filled with tangled magnetic fields that can act as slingshots, throwing huge quantities of charged particles towards our planet. These events, known as coronal mass ejections, become more common during the peak of the Sun's 11-year solar cycle.

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Usually, they miss the Earth, but this time, NOAA says several have headed directly toward our planet, and the agency predicted that several waves of flares will continue to slam into the Earth over the next few days.

While the storm has proven to be large, predicting the effects from such incidents can be difficult, Dahl said.

Shocking problems

The most disruptive solar storm ever recorded came in 1859. Known as the "Carrington Event," it generated shimmering auroras that were visible as far south as Mexico and Hawaii. It also fried telegraph systems throughout Europe and North America.

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While this geomagnetic storm will not be as strong, the world has grown more reliant on electronics and electrical systems. Depending on the orientation of the storm's magnetic field, it could induce unexpected electrical currents in long-distance power lines — those currents could cause safety systems to flip, triggering temporary power outages in some areas.

my cat just experienced the aurora borealis, one of the world's most radiant natural phenomena... and she doesn't care pic.twitter.com/Ee74FpWHFm — PJ (@kickthepj) May 10, 2024

The storm is also likely to disrupt the ionosphere, a section of Earth's atmosphere filled with charged particles. Some long-distance radio transmissions use the ionosphere to "bounce" signals around the globe, and those signals will likely be disrupted. The particles may also refract and otherwise scramble signals from the global positioning system, according to Rob Steenburgh, a space scientist with NOAA. Those effects can linger for a few days after the storm.

Like Dahl, Steenburgh said it's unclear just how bad the disruptions will be. While we are more dependent than ever on GPS, there are also more satellites in orbit. Moreover, the anomalies from the storm are constantly shifting through the ionosphere like ripples in a pool. "Outages, with any luck, should not be prolonged," Steenburgh said.

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The radiation from the storm could have other undesirable effects. At high altitudes, it could damage satellites, while at low altitudes, it's likely to increase atmospheric drag, causing some satellites to sink toward the Earth.

The changes to orbits wreak havoc, warns Tuija Pulkkinen, chair of the department of climate and space sciences at the University of Michigan. Since the last solar maximum, companies such as SpaceX have launched thousands of satellites into low Earth orbit. Those satellites will now see their orbits unexpectedly changed.

"There's a lot of companies that haven't seen these kind of space weather effects before," she says.

The International Space Station lies within Earth's magnetosphere, so its astronauts should be mostly protected, Steenburgh says.

In a statement, NASA said that astronauts would not take additional measures to protect themselves. "NASA completed a thorough analysis of recent space weather activity and determined it posed no risk to the crew aboard the International Space Station and no additional precautionary measures are needed," the agency said late Friday.

People visit St Mary's lighthouse in Whitley Bay to see the aurora borealis on Friday in Whitley Bay, England. Ian Forsyth/Getty Images hide caption

People visit St Mary's lighthouse in Whitley Bay to see the aurora borealis on Friday in Whitley Bay, England.

While this storm will undoubtedly keep satellite operators and utilities busy over the next few days, individuals don't really need to do much to get ready.

"As far as what the general public should be doing, hopefully they're not having to do anything," Dahl said. "Weather permitting, they may be visible again tonight." He advised that the largest problem could be a brief blackout, so keeping some flashlights and a radio handy might prove helpful.

I took these photos near Ranfurly in Central Otago, New Zealand. Anyone can use them please spread far and wide. :-) https://t.co/NUWpLiqY2S — Dr Andrew Dickson reform/ACC (@AndrewDickson13) May 10, 2024

And don't forget to go outside and look up, adds Steenburgh. This event's aurora is visible much further south than usual.

A faint aurora can be detected by a modern cell phone camera, he adds, so even if you can't see it with your eyes, try taking a photo of the sky.

The aurora "is really the gift from space weather," he says.

• space weather
• solar flares
• solar storm