I lived near the beach in San Francisco and had a backyard facing west, we got a relative good amount of star gazing for a large city. But when we went up to Mendocino county, with no moon it was unbelievable, and I am very thankful I got to see it so many times.
I have been in the middle of the Mojave and the first couple times it was darn scary looking up and seeing all those stars it was obscene