There's nothing like a dark site, but I find that a cheap Sky Glow / Light Pollution Filter really does make a noticeable improvement on the fainter objects (in suburban Brisbane).
The one I'm using partially attenuates the mercury and sodium wavelengths, with very little attenuation of other visible light wavelengths, so it really does cut back the sky-glow without dimming the other features significantly. You can see the effect very clearly if you just hold it up to the night sky, or look at a sodium or mercury street light at night, and I tested it with my Desktop Spectroscopy kit
http://publiclab.org/wiki/spectrometer to see if it really does what it says on the box - and it does!