The difference between a deep partial eclipse and a total eclipse is sort of like the difference between a really excellent dinner, the kind of dinner that you'll remember with fondness later, versus your first kiss with your future spouse.  Travel to see the totality.

Don't feel like you have to travel all the way to the middle of the path of totality to get a proper eclipse experience. The moon's shadow is a circle, and the slope of a circle goes to infinity at its edge, so the duration of the total eclipse goes up very fast. In 2017, the university where I was teaching hadn't considered holding an event on campus, even though we were in the path of totality, because we were only a mile from the edge of the path and it surely wouldn't be long enough to be interesting. WRONG. Just a mile from the edge of the path, we got about sixty seconds of total eclipse.  We had about 5000 visitors for the event, perfect weather, an amazing experience.

The next total eclipse in North America is not for twenty years. You are so close to this one. Don't skip it.