Your Packing List for Burning Man if you are Free Camping
A common trap for people who come year after year is wanting to bring more comforts until you eventually need to rent storage for your Burning Man gear and a trailer to tow. We wanted to fit everything in our Subaru Ascent for our first Burn, which is still large compared to most vehicles.
It’s wild to think that when we moved to a new city every year, we fit all our belongings in our car. But on our drive up, we realized our car was completely filled with only Burning Man gear.
First, you need to decide which camping route you will take. You have two main camping options at Burning Man.
1. staying with an existing registered camp
They offer some infrastructure and benefits (like showers, power, and new friends) in exchange for a fee and/or volunteering to work at the camp.
2. Free Camping or Open camping
The other option is to free camp. In this case, you must bring everything to survive for the week. If you’re going with friends, you can share resources, but you should always be prepared to be self-reliant.
If we were going solo, we might have considered a camp, but since we went with friends, we enjoyed the free camping experience. It allowed us to be further away from the parties, meaning we could get better sleep at night.
Although an RV is an option, we wanted to simplify our first experience at Burning Man, so we tent-camped.
See More: 21 Car Camping Essentials – Everything You Need to Pack