The Final Vacation Frontier

This is part of Reason's 2025 summer travel issue. Click here to read the rest of the issue.

Looking to get really away from it all? How about 250 miles straight up and traveling at 17,500 mph away from it all? This year, why not take a vacation in low earth orbit—specifically, on the International Space Station (ISS)?

In recent years, this zero-gravity tangle of wires, solar panels, and science experiments has quietly become the ultimate libertarian getaway: government-funded, sure, but with private companies offering first-class tickets to private citizens, with no TSA line. Enjoy a little slice of the final frontier where the drinks are bagged, the views are unbeatable, and the small but real risk of death keeps things spicy.

Since 2001, a growing trickle of nongovernmental spacefarers have shelled out the big bucks to hang out among the stars. The first space tourist, Dennis Tito—an American engineer and investment manager—paid $20 million to the Russian space agency to catch a ride on a Soyuz rocket and spent eight days aboard the ISS. Since then, about a dozen other private individuals have followed, including Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté (who performed clown routines in zero gravity) and Japanese fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa, who livestreamed his orbital adventure in 2021 like it was just another TikTok vlog.

You can book a trip through SpaceX or Axiom Space, the latter of which offers "private astronaut missions" at a tidy $55 million per seat. That price includes training, transport aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon, and about a week on the ISS with food, Wi-Fi, and astronaut jumpsuits provided. (Bring your own ice cream.)

It's not exactly an all-inclusive beach resort. (Bigelow Aerospace's plan for inflatable space hab hotels has unfortunately come to naught.) Space toilets are complicated. You'll need to train for several months beforehand, and there's a nonzero chance you'll vomit while upside down in your first 20 minutes aboard. Also, there's always the possibility of becoming an accidental long-term resident—Russian cosmonauts once got stuck up there for more than a year due to a leaky coolant system, and more recently two NASA astronauts overstayed their planned visit by more than eight months after the Boeing Starliner that was supposed to retrieve them was deemed insufficient to the task.

So if you're tired of TSA gropes, carbon offset guilt trips, and lukewarm meals from room service, consider this: For the cost of a slightly used Gulfstream, you too can become an astronaut, orbiting above the fray with the silent satisfaction of a man—or woman—who really got away from it all.

No passport required. Just a lot of money.