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there are tons of places in the US where it's dark enough you can see the milky way shining brilliantly, just not in the heavily populated areas. Washington, Oregon, Idaho Montana, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Maine, Vermont. even more places in Canada, Alaska, Norway...

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You can see the milky way at any location with a sqm of 19 or higher. True darkness is sqm 22.

Being able to see it and being blown away by it are different.

I can see the milky way but I wouldn't describe it as "a new moon just smeared all across the sky" like one of the other commenters. It's more like just a vaguely higher-density strip of stars.

My location is 21 SQM according to the DarkSkySites map.

I see the milky way every clear night (other than full moons) and after a decade or more of this I'm still blown away by it. I'm never going to get tired of seeing our beautiful galaxy stretched across the sky.

I once wanted our then still young daughter to see a real night sky (as I experienced more often as a kid). We were on a darker part of an island (the map says 21.7 sqm). It was a bit tricky walking through the dunes in such pitch dark (no full moon), but also stunningly beautiful. It’s worth doing every now and then to experience our smallness in the vastness of the universe.

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