In 1882, in his novel The Green Ray, Julio Verne spoke of the flash of that color that can be observed in the moment just before the sun sets. It is, however, a ray that can only be seen if you pay close attention - staring at the sun fixedly, which is not easy - and sometimes not even then. It is elusive but, if seen even once, it compensates for the other attempts.
It happens every day, the sunset. Without fail, since the world began. What is happening now that everyone has agreed to upload a photo of a sunset in Cadiz at the same time? Of course, social media has intervened, changing everything once again. Sunsets have always been special, but now we have realized that they are also very 'Instagrammable'.
It has been proven and popularized for years that watching the sunrise and sunset regulates our circadian rhythms, helps us rest better, and calms our nervous system. But the current craze for watching - and photographing - the sunset goes beyond health benefits.
The first sunrise in Spain occurs in Es Castell, a municipality on the island of Menorca, in the Balearic Islands. On the other side of Spain, Cabo Touriñán, in Muxía, in La Coruña, is positioned as the point on the continental Europe where the last rays of sun are seen during two periods of the year: right now, from August 18 to September 19, and from March 24 to April 23.
Jorge Mira is a professor in the department of applied physics at the University of Santiago de Compostela and was the one who discovered that, on those days of the year, Spain gained in the race to be the last illuminated place. "I realized that planet Earth, in its orbit around the sun, changes its relative orientation with respect to it," he explains. "This causes the line that separates day from night to not always go from north to south, but it inclines throughout the year, achieving this phenomenon."
In 2008, this discovery led the tourism strategy of the Costa da Morte area to focus on this issue: "In fact, the Galicia tourism campaign for 2023 at Fitur was based on this," Mira recalls. And he celebrates it because he observes that in other parts of our country, such as some areas of the Mediterranean or the Balearic Islands, "the theme of sunsets has been very exploited for many years, and they are full of people, with all this mystique of the chill-outs to watch them."
So much so that, in March of this year, the Es Vedrà viewpoint in Ibiza had to close due to local exhaustion from tourist overcrowding, especially during sunset hours, when the area turned into an impromptu stage with DJs and also a place for drinking.
From Civitatis, a company where you can book tours to watch the sunset at Es Vedrà, some of which were at the now closed viewpoint, they assure that "only in the first half of 2025 there has been an 8% increase in sunset activity reservations at Es Vedrà compared to the previous year," turning the sunset into the main reason for many visits, not just another attraction. Many travelers choose the sunset time for tours just to see it.
"We offer several boat departures per day, but those that coincide with the sunset usually sell out first. They are the most demanded, and it is a way to diversify the tourist offer without saturating the traditional access points." They aim for the traveler to continue enjoying "the magic of Es Vedrà, but without risking its conservation." Companies like Civitatis sell the experience, but tourists do not always seek to contemplate: many times, they simply want to be where they need to be.
The closure of the Es Vedrà viewpoint gives an idea of the magnitude of the phenomenon. News multiplied with headlines discussing where to see the best sunset with the arrival of summer, as well as unofficial rankings. Groups on social networks like Facebook exclusively dedicated to sharing photos of the sunset contribute to the frenzy. Other areas, such as Tenerife natural parks located around Teide, are already concerned about the impact of overcrowding, caused precisely by watching these sunsets.
José Antonio Corraliza is a professor of Environmental Psychology at the Autonomous University of Madrid and explains how watching the sunset influences our brain, through three components that build the foundations of what end up being "peak experiences," that is, milestones that tend to persist in our memory. These three factors are the mental, physical, and social well-being that this experience provides.
Seeing all this boom, Andrew Yates created the Alpenglow application 10 years ago, which predicts sunsets by scoring them based on orientation or cloudiness. "In the last month, 150,000 users have opened and used the application, which has been downloaded close to a million and a half times in its existence. Of that million and a half, 600,000 were in Spain. There I had 80,000 downloads in a single day in 2021 due to a viral TikTok from a Spanish user," Yates points out.
The sociologist specialized in culture Dafne Muntanyola warns, however, how the logic of the algorithm is distorting how we consume these types of experiences, in this case, cultural ones, which are becoming accelerated. "It is also a very clear element of today's capitalist society, in which we tend to think that an experience has more value if it scores higher, if it accumulates more quantitatively, and generates competitiveness. The more sunsets, the better; the longer the sunset lasts, the better. We have turned it into a collection of mental stickers."
According to Yates, his app provides a view of how important the phenomenon is both globally and in our country. However, he also concedes that sunsets are becoming almost solely something to be photographed: "If tools like mine can help people take a break and look up, even without taking out their phones, that's a victory," he concludes.
Yates argues that his app can help disconnect. The truth is that, for now, what it seems to do most is organize queues in advance. Just ask Xabi Guede, 23, who responds to why he likes watching the sunset so much from a chat with a profile picture at a Greek sunset: "For me, the fact that it happens every day and yet we still like it or get excited about it, I think it has to do with the emotional charge we give to the end of a day, to closing a cycle. It's a moment to reflect and be with people appreciating it."
Like Xabi, with his photo in the middle of a sunset, for many, the sunset is a moment to take out the camera. Muntanyola explains that here too, aesthetics play a role with the concept of the so-called golden hour, "that privileged hour, just before sunset, when people look their best. Before, only photographers knew it, but now with social media, we all know it, and many people go specifically to take a selfie and look good. In other words, the sunset would be a means, not an end, to take a photo." In short, the logic of: if it's not in my gallery, it didn't happen.
For María Gil, "it is a spectacle of nature that can be seen every day and, in reality, it is never the same". "It gives me peace because the sunset has a ritualistic aspect: it happens every day, no matter what, whether it has been a good or bad day, whether you see it more or less, whether you are aware of it or not. It is a beautiful spectacle that makes me a little more aware of the miracle of living each day."
Unknowingly, María and Xabi are referring precisely to the three types of well-being mentioned by psychologist Corraliza. On one hand, watching the sunset has benefits such as allowing us to regain our attention capacity by not being able to think of anything else, comforting us, or making us reflect.
On the other hand, physical well-being is often provided by factors such as light or a breeze, and contact with nature has been proven to reduce stress much more quickly, Corraliza points out. However, Mira points out that we shouldn't look at it directly if we don't want to damage our retinas. Finally, these moments are usually shared with loved ones or can generate a thought for those we care about.
Muntanyola explains that, furthermore, "the aesthetics of a sunset photo are considered, from the perspective of art ethnology, to be the aesthetics of the average, middle-class consumer." "Umberto Eco and Pierre Bourdieu comment on it: they are beautiful images, easily accessible; it's a type of beauty that everyone likes. That's why, for some people with a more intellectual taste, let's say, linked to a high level of cultural capital, the hobby of taking photos of it can seem corny, kitsch, or naive."
For Professor Mira, beyond his theoretical training, the love of saying goodbye to the sun comes from "that atavistic fascination we have with death and life, that moment of transcendence we have when faced with the fundamental questions that human beings have always asked themselves and cannot answer," he says.
"Human beings cannot explain everything, and this death of the sun is a kind of metaphor for that mystery of what happens when everything dies: what lies beyond the limits of the world?" says Mira. Watching the sunset reminds us that our place in the world is truly minuscule when faced with something so vast and spectacular.
As psychologist Corraliza points out, our compulsive desire to regain contact with nature is not voluntary and goes beyond a fad, even if it is Instagrammable. It was observed when we went out after the 2020 lockdown and just wanted to go to the countryside: we need these kinds of experiences.
Sunset has a close symbolism with closure, and it absorbs us. In Corraliza's words: "I don't want to end the day thinking about the last bad word a boss said to me. And it's not really that we seek to see the sunset to close the day well, but we see it and say: yes, that's it, the day can be over, it's worth closing it. Everything's fine. Let's see what the next one holds." Don't worry: whether we photograph it or not, the reality is that tomorrow will happen.
There are those who applaud when the sun sets, like when a low-cost airline plane lands, as if they haven't been doing it all their lives, of all their lives. Perhaps because we no longer dare to remain silent in the face of something so simple yet so great. Or perhaps for the same reason Corraliza points out: we celebrate that this day is over. On to the next.