The most rarefied bed-and-­breakfast ever built is located not very far from you—just 250 miles away. The trick is, it’s 250 miles straight up. The not-so-­little inn is the International Space Station, which over the course of its 24-year life has hosted a handful of tourists paying upward of $20 million per seat to fly aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

On April 8, 2022, the U.S. got in on the game as Houston-­based Axiom Space launched its first crew of three paying tourists and a mission commander (an Axiom employee) for a 15-day ISS stay. The three tourists paid $55 million each for their fortnight-­plus in space. Axiom plans more such space-tourist flights in the future. The price is steep, but for deep-­pocketed adventurers, the incomparable view, not to mention the thrill of weightlessness, makes it worth it.

The International Space Station. (Kayla Barron—NASA)
The International Space Station.
Kayla Barron—NASA
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Write to Jeffrey Kluger at jeffrey.kluger@time.com.

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