ACROSS AMERICA — The unique natural symphony of potentially trillions of periodical cicadas is triggering what could be a wave of cicada tourism as people plan “cicada-cations” around their synchronized emergence.

Periodical cicadas, which live underground for 13 or 17 years, depending on the brood, tunnel up through the ground when soil temperatures reach about 64 degrees Fahrenheit. They’re already boring through the soil in some parts of the Deep South, and could arrive ahead of schedule in states that are experiencing an early spring.

Soon after the emergence of the Brood XIX of 13-year bugs, their cicada cousins in the Northern Illinois Brood, the 17-year Brood XIII, will come out of the ground.

Two things — Brood XIX has the largest geographic range of the Eastern cicadas in the country, and its dual emergence with Brood XIII — combine to make the 2024 emergence potentially the largest in centuries.

Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin will also see Northern Illinois Brood emergences. The Great Southern Brood’s range includes Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, and parts of Illinois and Iowa.

Male cicadas herald their arrival with loud mating calls to attract females. They make their ways into trees as quickly as they can, shedding their hard exoskeletons as they scale the tree. Cicadas live only a few weeks above ground, long enough for the females to lay their fertilized eggs, and then die. When young nymphs hatch, they burrow underground and the whole process starts anew.

“I actually really want to see this,” someone who lives in the Pacific Northwest, where the natural phenomenon doesn’t occur, commented on a Reddit thread. “One of my core memories as a child was an emergence that happened while my family lived in Georgia.”

• Related: Cicadas Are Cool Science — And You Can Eat Them

Another person, commenting on Reddit thread about the best places to see the double brood emergence, plans to drive to Illinois and camp out in the car for a week or so.

“I like to kinda wing trips or else I get stressed out when things don’t go ‘according to plan,’ ” the free-spirited person said. “They can’t go according to plan if there really is no plan. This emergence happens to land on a time of the year when I have some extra availability too, so I was just planning on watching the weather reports and heading over when it starts warming up.”

The Land of Lincoln is a safe bet for the stress-averse cicada tourist.

Both broods are emerging in Illinois this year, at the same time, and are due out of the ground as early as late April or mid-May, but in general not in the same places. The northern half of the state will experience the 17-year cicadas, while the 13-year cicadas will emerge in the southern part of Illinois. For people looking for an experience of biblical proportions, there may be some overlap between Broods XIX and XIII, around Springfield in “downstate” Illinois.

And, a few cicadas from Brood XXIII, the Mississippi Valley Brood, may sneak out of the ground early, four years ahead of schedule in far southern Illinois, according to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Extension Service.

• Related: ‘Cicada-Geddon’ Map: Where To See & Hear Periodical Cicadas

‘It’s Awesome, Right?’

Curiosity, and even love, for cicadas is palpable on social media forums. So are fear and loathing.

“My mom has ‘listen to cicadas’ on her bucket list so we’re planning a trip from the [Pacific Northwest],” someone else from the cicada desert in the western half of the country said in another Reddit thread. “Now that we’re a bit closer, any tips on timing and places to stay?”

“I have never experienced a cicada hatch, and I’m thinking about going to Illinois to see the big one this year,” someone using the handle “Insect Appreciation” wrote on Reddit.”Would this be a worthwhile trip?

“It’s awesome, right?” Insect Appreciation continued. “Like as a bug lover, that’s something I should see? Or is just really obnoxious to deal with? Anything I need to know?”

Yes. Yes, there is.

As an entomologist, it was “fascinating” to see the last emergence of 17-year cicadas in Illinois, one user said, recalling being able to “sit in the yard and watch them crawl out of the ground.”

“I would be on a conference call with my colleagues and go outside and make them all be quiet so they could listen,” she continued. “I took videos up into the trees just to see how many were flying around.”

“But,” she said, “you have to be in the right location to get the full effect, and it can be a small or big area. We also experienced cicada mites after they all hatched. Any outdoor exposure was likely to leave you covered in super itchy red welts. But the hatch was fascinating.”

Another person planning an Illinois cicada-cation has zeroed in on Dewitt County,about two hours south of Chicago, as a prime location. After poring through historical weather records, the person thinks early June “will provide ideal conditions to see a lot of bugs.”

• Related: Where To See And Hear Cicadas In Illinois

A Hippopotamus-Scale Emergence

Almost anywhere in Missouri is a good bet for the cicada curious. Far northeast Missouri could experience both broods, and an early start to spring means the emerging males could set up their siren song later this month or in early May.

St. Louis County alone could see 60 billion Brood XIX cicadas, according to Tad Yankoski, senior entomologist at the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House in St. Louis.

“Imagine as many insects as you possibly can coming out of the ground in a very short window of time. Now add some more—a lot more,” Yankoski told a blog for the Missouri Botanical Garden. “They’ll be everywhere, they’ll be loud, and you won’t be able to avoid them.”

To put the sheer volume of bugs into perspective, imagine about 2 million cicadas boring through a patch of ground the size of a football field, he said. That many cicadas collectively weigh more than 8,000 pounds, or more than a hippopotamus.

“I know they’re just bugs and they’re harmless, but they freak me out,” said someone with cicada trauma. “They’re clumsy and fly and bump into you and then stick to you. … It was my own personal hell. I’m not looking forward to a large quantity of them any time soon. But obviously, I’ll deal like an adult. Just hating it the entire time. …”

“Oh dear god, they’re here, too?” someone said on a Reddit thread about the Brood XIX emergence in Missouri. The person still hasn’t shaken the memory of hiking at Antietam National Battlefield near Sharpsburg, Maryland, “right in the thick” of a large cicada emergence in May 2021.

“The screams and noises the cicadas made were unbelievably loud,” the person said. “They drowned out even the music playing through my earbuds at max volume.”

Someone else in Missouri said the cicada emergence is a teachable moment.

“It’s going to be a great time to learn about cicadas for my kids,” the person said. “They’ll love it I’m sure. Hopefully the little one doesn’t try to eat them too badly.”

‘A Sure Enough Visceral Experience’

In Tennessee, where Brood XIX cicadas are expected to come out of the ground in mid-May, someone was asking on Reddit for tips on “avoiding cicada hell.”

“I’m deathly scared of cicadas, and my husband had said he’d get me a beekeepers outfit,” one person replied. “I plan to just not go outside.”

“If it helps, I grew up in cicada central and the only time I came across them was when I was climbing trees,” someone offered. “I would wager you won’t be doing that. The most noticeable thing about them is the sound, and even then half the time you don’t see them.

“I think what might help most is educating yourself on them entirely so that you know exactly what they are and what they aren’t, in regard to contamination. Facts can sometimes beat fear.”

“It’s a sure enough visceral experience. I hope you are able to enjoy it,” someone said. “Doesn’t happen all the time. Just go along for the ride.”

Or not.

“We are really tempted to leave the state when it starts this year now that we have lots of old trees in our yard, versus a couple of saplings in a new subdivision,” someone said.

Cicada dread outweighed appreciation for the bugs on the thread. But the bugs do have a share of upstanders.

“The cicada broods are incredibly healthy for the environment,” one of them said. “I’ve always loved knowing the birds and other animals get some yummy nourishment over the weeks/months the cicadas are out; it’s a peaceful thought for me personally. I wish you peace!”

“I don’t hate it. I think it’s pretty cool and try to cherish them when they’re here,” someone said on another Tennessee Reddit thread. “They leave their little brown husks everywhere. They make cool noises. Even it’s ‘bad,’ it’s good, you know?”

“I guess I’m in the minority on this but I actually love cicadas,” another person commented. “It’s really cool to me that they just live underground for 13 years and crawl out of their deep slumber to have sex, make a lot of noise and freak out humans for a couple of days before dying, sometimes kamikaze style into some bachelorette’s fresh hairdo.”

Cicadas are also due to in Kentucky in late April or early May. People attending the Kentucky Derby on May 4 won’t have to contend with them, though. Jefferson County, where Churchill Downs is located, isn’t in the bugs’ range.

Emergences are “very hodgepodge,” someone said on a Kentucky cicada Reddit thread.

“I was in the area last time, but they didn’t come,” the person said. “In a nearby town, there were tons in an area and a mile away, there were none.”

Trips to America’s historic battlefields are a Memorial Day tradition for many Americans, and some throughout the Southeast could still be under siege during the three-day holiday weekend (it’s May 25-27 this year).

Cicada experts in Maryland don’t expect nearly as much noise this year when bugs from brood XIX emerge, likely in mid-May. Because of development pressures, they’re barely holding on only in a sliver of the corner of St. Mary’s County.

Virginia won’t contribute much to the cicada buzz, either. It’s on the very edge of Brood XIX’s range, which makes it difficult to predict exactly when they’ll emerge. Development, and the resulting disappearance of trees, also pressures Virginia cicadas.

A guy who described a 1990 periodical cicada emergence in Illinois as “a sci-fi experience I’ll never forget” wanted to know on a site about Civil War historic sites if it would be safe for him and his wife to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

“Walking through a cloud of fat 2-inch-long bugs with bulging red eyes that alight and make themselves at home in your hair and clothes does not sound like an ideal way to do this,” he wrote.

In 1990, “folks were actually using snow shovels to scrape the piles of dead and dying bugs off their sidewalks and driveway,” the fellow said.

The couple can mark themselves safe. Pennsylvania isn’t among the states with broods emerging this year but did experience the emergence of Brood X in 2021.

Someone on the Civil War Talk forum offered this helpful advice:

“If you fear the bombardment, I suggest a helmet with a visor and a heavy-duty poncho. Perhaps carry hiking poles if they get too deep. Whatever the case, be wary of opening a salad for lunch without a recon of the area. Perhaps a ‘Ghostbuster’ style heavy-duty air blower is in order. Spare batteries of course.”