Burning Man - 10 Tips and Tricks to make the most out of your experience

Where is there a society where there is no money or bartering, no animals, and no clothes? Well, almost no clothes. And it only exists for one week out of the year. Check out this episode for 10 tips and tricks on how to make your experience even better here at Burning Man. Hi, I'm Ryan Jinks and welcome to Camp Flamp here at Burning Man. We are going to share with you 10 tips and tricks, some things we did right, some things we wish we did better, to help make your experience a little bit better if you come to Burning Man. Now Camp Flamp, in case you're wondering, is this fire lamp. The propane comes out of the top. It looks pretty cool when it lights. It's got a nice patio look and feel to our camp. Scott Hong, the guy who was our officiant at our wedding, put that together. And Michael Melner and Garrison Roland, who were also key parts in our wedding, are also here. Garrison's girlfriend, Laura. And of course, my wife, Kim Weglin. We're all here at Camp Flamp and I'm going to show you how we decided to do it. Okay, tip number one is to have shade. This is the one thing we spent the most time preparing for, so I'm going to dive a little into detail on this. The rest of the things are pretty straightforward. What I bought here was two pieces of 12 by 36 shade tarps with 90% shade. My walls are 70% shade. This allows the wind to blow through it. It's a little bit more durable than just gray cheap plastic tarps, which we did try in one of our trial runs and it failed miserably. So you can see here that Scott has a hole in the middle of his. I had to use paint bucket lids in order to prevent my two by fours from poking holes in mine. It held pretty well considering we had some violent wind storms, which is pretty normal here. My seam, which I connected with just some paracord, ended up being pretty inconvenient because that's where my two by fours were propping it up. There's a lot of ways to skin this cat. You can see how our neighbors here have a rigid shade perimeter and then they connect their shade with bungee balls and then they have these playground hexagon things, very large versions of what you see at playgrounds, and then connect pentagon shaped tarps to that. What we did was we ran paracord, paracord through Scott's and steel through mine, in and out of all of the grommet holes and then we connected it to four by four posts because conduit pipe just for legs is not enough. These are straps that we bolted into the ground and in order to get all the grommets to kind of work together, we did this three-way equalization system. So you can see here how it grabs this one, the corner, and that right there. And in order to get just one more grommet to help hold everything together, I just added a piece of paracord to our eye bolt directly. This is an eye bolt nut which allows us to pull on both sides of this. Those were very nice. Our wall structure is just paracorded tediously through grommet to grommet and then we bolted it to the ground. Instead of pounding rebar into the ground, which is not as and it can be a bitch to get out. We used three-eighths inch lag bolts by a forearm length with two chain links on there. One to hold it and one to clip something to it. And we just impact drill it into the ground. Let me show you an example. That's not going anywhere. That is a bomber. Okay. The second thing is I recommend bringing water. Now, obviously you're bringing drinking water. Kim and I drink about one gallon per person per day. You might even want to bring a little bit more than that because we'd like it was right there. However, what I'm talking about is usable like gray water. So what I have in this bucket is a bunch of water that we can use to wash our hands. That actually feels really good. And we just use a cup and pour it on. This keeps rigid sides. It's just a kiddie pool and it's a blow-up kind, whereas a normal kiddie pool needs water to keep the sides up. I cut a little hole here and this is on plywood, which has five gallon buckets holding it up, which is the height of the five gallon bucket that catches the water. Anyways, you can't just pour water all over the playa, the ground here. So you got to have a way to capture this stuff. You can miss the ground a little bit, but you can't make puddles. And so what I ended up trying to do on this trip was to filter the water using a sand gravel combination down to ceramic filters. Ceramic filters get clogged pretty quickly, mostly with soap, but this dust is so fine out here that it just sucked trying to keep the filters cleaned. So instead of bringing the buckets to have the filters, I would just bring more buckets of water. To take a full inefficient cup shower only takes three gallons, but you can take a bug sprayer, a mister, and put your water in there, mist yourself down, soap up, and only maybe use a And you don't even necessarily need a full shower every day if you can wash your hands and face and sometimes your feet a couple of times a day. It's just really nice to have that water. One of the best things we did is we used one of these empty buckets we brought for our yucky, yucky gray, black water. We spit our toothpaste water in there. We put our leftover food and milk, our liquid stuff after cooking a meal. That was really nice to have because you can't just, it's not like a normal camping trip where you can just walk up to a tree and brush your teeth and spit. So I highly recommend having some version of this even if it's just a simple bug spray and that's all you bring, but you definitely need something to feel human again and maybe even wash your hair. There are camp showers around here. There's a Dr. Bronner's foam, the foam machine thing. There's a thing where everybody scrubs everybody, but it's nice to just be at camp and be able to wash your face sometimes. So make sure you bring a bunch of water. Tip number three, be prepared for sandstorms. We had two major whiteouts here and they last for like 24 hours sometimes and you can still go out and have fun. A lot of people are still doing a lot of stuff, but you've got to have something. These are ski goggles. I highly recommend something I would do different is to bring two pair, mostly because in case you lose one, you would be super fucked. I mean, you can't, you can't go without this stuff. And the other pair I would get with some sort of like sunglass cover, something that would block out bright light. Because one of the days we had a sandstorm that was super bright and I had to decide between this and my sunglasses. And eventually at some point I couldn't see anymore because I was so bright. And then I put on my sunglasses and then got sand in my eye anyways. So I got screwed both ways regardless. So two of these, multiples of these, but these are only for light, light wind. These really actually do suck and do nothing for you except make you look like you belong at Burning Man. What I highly recommend is on the really bad day, I wore my respirator and at the end of the day, my lungs did not hurt. It was like the first day my lungs didn't hurt. So just be really, really prepared to try to still have fun during a sandstorm. And everything goes to shit. Your whole camp goes to shit when you do have sandstorms. So they happen as part of Burning Man and they're perfectly, perfectly fine if you're prepared. Tip number four, have a backpack. If I were to do this again, I would bring a bigger one for evenings when I need jackets and stuff during the day, this one's fine. But you always need things with you. I always carry this fanny pack with my psychedelic kitty cats to hold my phone and some of my more important stuff. You need your ID with you at all times because you can't do half the shit around here without your ID. You do need a cup. Nobody gives you a cup. So if you're going to get alcohol, a drink, your amante, anything, people are constantly gifting things, but radical self-reliance means you need a cup. You need things for dust storms. You never know when they're going to hit. We've been caught off guard twice. I do carry my dust equipment here all the time. This is small. My lip balm is nice. Earplugs if you're a pussy, if you're going to go to concerts. It's so, so bright out there. I don't do very well after several hours without sunglasses. I also have my day allotment for food if I go out during the day or I have jackets if I go out at night because yes, it does get pretty cold here. About every other night it's pretty cold. We are at 4,000 feet of elevation, keep in mind. I always carry two headlamps, one spare. Sometimes if you're pretty dark, if you're not walking with your bike, you can maybe put one on the back of your head so no one runs you over in the middle of the night. I have written my information on my backpack. Something I would do differently is write my information on everything. What camp we're in, my phone number. I put Kim's phone number, wrote it directly on the back of the phone I'm using right now to film. So in case somebody finds it, there are good people here who would be more than happy to return your shit to you if you were to lose it when you set it down to jump on a trampoline and forget to take it with you. Yes, that happened to me. Have a day kit completely organized that you don't, it doesn't take you very long to set up each time you want to go out so you're always, always prepared. Tip number five is to have bikes. There's, Playa's pretty big. A couple things to know about them is you should decorate them to make them unique to you in order to be able to one, find them and two, less likely for them to get stolen. Most people don't steal things around here because they're bad. It's mostly because they're usually in desperate need of a It's really important to have lights on your bike. Here's some led rope lights. I have some fairy lights on here and some type 18 slackline webbing. That's fun. We decided to put baskets on ours and a couple of cute little signs. And I have a sparkly light for, to be easily seen and a spotlight so I can see. We have some wheel lights here. You want to be really lit up so people can see you when you're driving your bike. You really don't want to be dark when you're out on the Playa at night. You can see here that I have locked my bike. I like the combination lock, so I'm not worried about losing a key. You can see how my gears are awfully dusty. I'm noticing they are starting to suck and should be lubed up. A tennis ball is really nice on the kickstand. That's pretty common around here so it doesn't sink into the clay and then tip over. Tip number six, make sure you have your food prepped well. In our case, Kim did a lot of work getting non perishable food for our lunches each day and labeled it for each person. This is something we could use when we go home if we don't eat all of it, which is super nice. Now we do have a big ice chest here that we put fresher food in so we can have nicer dinners. And our breakfasts are just in this box. We decided to keep it simple and go with cereal and just keep reusing this with our spoons. Very simple to do breakfast, very simple to do lunch, and dinners are something we come and rest before we go out for the evening. Now, Scott's beta is to go to Whole Foods and grab a handful of these, all the different variations. It's not the cheapest way to go, but it tastes good. He doesn't have to heat it up, just pulls it out of his ice chest and he's able to eat any of his meals. This is a great way to keep it convenient. Convenient is very important when you're hot and distracted with everything. You're not going to feel like eating, so you've got to make this easy. Unless you love cooking, these are the best ways of doing this. Tip number seven, feel like you're at home. For us, our van, we have a van video, if you haven't seen that on how we've set this up. This feels very cozy to us. This is a soft foam and then a hard foam underneath. We can turn on the air conditioner. I brought extra gas in order to rest in here during the hottest part of the day, if we please. If we just want to get out of a windstorm or want to be by ourselves or something, we can recharge inside of here. So Garrison has kind of a bigger car, but it's not something they decided to sleep in. Garrison and Laura decided to put up this tent and it feels very homey in here. Something they can rest and relax and recharge because there's just a lot of overload out on the playa and it's nice to come back and just regroup. Now Kim and I wish we had set up a tent like this for a storage shed so we can lay out our stuff a lot better because you could, as you could see, our van was kind of messy and it's hard to keep a small space so neat all the time. Scott also has his yurt. He sleeps on that cot and it's kind of warm in here now, but it's also 100 degrees outside. But with the carpet on the floor and just this cozy space, it's really relaxing when you just need a break. Okay, tip number eight is find the Goldilocks zone. The Goldilocks zone is to be far enough away from the bathrooms to not smell them, but it's not too overwhelming to walk over there. Now we did have neighbors here that left a little while ago, but it's just about a one or two minute walk to get to them. But the wind, no matter which way it's blowing, we never smell those port-o-potties. However, if you're way the hell down that street, it would be pretty unmotivating to go to the bathroom three times a night when it's that far. If you do find yourself in that situation, you could do a five-gallon bucket and try to make a bathroom. I don't know if you want to make one per person, if you want to try to put a lid on that, maybe find something that you could go to the bathroom in if you're not sure where you're going to end up. We did not get placed. This was something we had to search for when we entered in here. And so we were just lucky enough to not be right next to the bathrooms, but be close enough so it wasn't a pain in the ass. Get it? Tip number nine. Contribute. Gift. That is the culture here. Now I am not trying to go over all 10 Burning Man principles. Obviously pick up your trash and be super radically self-reliant, but this is something that's important. It helps you meet people and helps you get involved. Laura and Garrison made some food that they handed out. Scott made the camp flamp so people could come and dance under there. Kim made this cute little kissing booth and hug dealer box that we wore and walked around. You can just go out to the street with your bug sprayer and use your cooler water from your cooler that's melted and spray people that are hot. There's just a lot of ways to get involved. These people were handing out food earlier. These people just squirted Garrison with a super soaker. These guys have a bar over there. You don't have to spend several million dollars on an art car that puts out crazy lights and music, though some people get pretty into this here. But everyone can contribute something and it makes this festival what it is. So make sure you get involved just like slackline festivals. Get involved and it'll make your experience and everyone else's better. So tip number 10 is mindset. Something I had to learn here. I had ups and downs emotionally because of my mindset. If I'm a planner and I love logistics obviously if you've seen my other videos. And so I'm like I'm gonna go do this or I'm gonna go do that. And I'm not even talking planning three days in advance. I'm talking planning on going to an event and trying to like not be flexible about that. The playa provides is a common phrase around here and it's going to provide to you what it's going to provide you. You can get random stuff, awesome stuff. It's pretty special actually how that gifting community does that. But it's if you need a bike like they have community bikes you're not going to find it. If you need food you're probably not going to find it. If you're hungry you need to be radically self-reliant. You can't be a mooch around here and you wouldn't be very successful at it. So if you plan on getting on an art car, the decorative cars that drive around randomly and you just hop on them. I actually like doing that a lot. If you plan on going out to get on them you won't find any. Like you'll look as far as the eye can see and there won't be an art car. You just kind of go with the flow. Kim and I had plans last night, like a rough plan. And as soon as we saw art cars we're like let's jump on those. And as soon as the art car stopped it stopped at some concert place. It's like well let's hang out here. We just kind of have to go with the flow here. It's like you really got to go with the flow here. It's at a whole new level than I've ever expected. And whenever I have gone with the flow I've got some cool experiences I would never get anywhere else. And so those were the most fun times I had here. And when I was in planning mode were the least fun times. So I mean the man burns tonight. But if we plan on going to see the man burn it probably won't light on fire. You just like you head over there you know something cool is going to happen. If you get a good spot maybe there's like 70,000 people here. If half of those people are going to go watch this burn you probably be pretty far back. You have just low expectations. Go with the flow. If something even looks more fun we're going to go do that. So you can't be too set in your ways around here. And you can really really enjoy Burning Man if you have the right mindset. So Kim what is something that you would recommend to people that you wish that you knew before you got here? I would have worn looser pants on the first day and started with a fuzzy bike seat. I was lucky our neighbors had extra fuzz. I thought it was just for decoration out here but it kind of soaks up the moisture on your butt so your butt doesn't chafe. So day one I started with a horrible time and I've been trying to recover ever since. So prevent butt chafing. So loose pants like this or you know your Buddha pants are amazing. Don't wear tight underwear tight anything that's gonna chafe if you get sweaty and get some moisture. Soft fuzzy and loose. Soft fuzzy and loose. Just the way we like them. Yeah. How about you Mel? What would you do a little bit different? Um it was a really awesome experience. I'd probably just bring a tent that I could stand in. What's what's your tent look like? It's that tiny little backpacking Hey at least you're in the shade right? So yeah no that made it a lot better for sure. How late do you think you'd be sleeping each morning if you weren't in the shade in that tent? I'd be up at six or six thirty. And what time do you normally go to bed each night? Six or six thirty? I have no I don't even know what time is out here but um I don't know four is that what? Yeah four is pretty common so you would get no sleep. Okay yeah so shade's pretty important. Definitely. All right so Garrison what would you do different? Next time I came to Burning Man I would definitely bring more body lights for at night because it's scary when you don't have them. People yell at you. You don't want to be a dark wad. Cool. What would you do Laura? I would bring more socks because your feet stink and well now I'm not even wearing socks but I was wearing socks for like the first few days. I need a lot of socks. All right Scott what's your one piece of advice? It took five burns but bike theft is real. Recommend really using a bike lock here on the playa because I had mine stolen it's going to probably end up mooping somewhere on the playa because I can't find it anymore and it really does kind of affect how you think about the rest of your burn. So there are your 10 tips and tricks plus some bonus ones on how you best can survive Burning Man. Now we normally make slackline videos so thank you slackline audience for putting up with some random videos that I put out. I like sharing the logistics of things that I've spent a lot of time learning and so therefore you have a Burning Man episode. If you don't know what slacklining is check out our other episodes and find out if that's something you would enjoy. Obviously we love it a lot and Burning Man can be hot dusty and sometimes a little tiring therefore you shouldn't come. Hey thanks for watching but don't be an idiot and think you're going to survive your first year at Burning Man after watching some virgin tell you how he survived his first year at Burning Man. Go with someone who knows what they're doing. We came with Scott Hong and it was really really helpful to be able to talk to somebody who has been here several times before. Another option is pay your dues and get involved. It'll really help pave your way the first time you come out here and thank you to my patron supporters for helping support one dollar per episode on this channel. It helps support the overall channel because we sometimes do some pretty expensive things on here. If you do want to learn more about slacklining you can go to slackademics.com and we have almost all the information available on the internet about slacklining on our website. So go to slackademics.com and learn more about our sport. Now I disabled the comments in the YouTube version of this video because our channel is mostly focused on slacklining and so I want to always be able to respond quickly to everyone who leaves comments and so I'm going to disable them for this video but if you want to privately message me please do. I try to answer everyone who does and you can click like on the video if you like this video and if you think I've actually done harm to Burning Man by sharing the information I have click a thumbs down and it's good to get that feedback from everyone. So until you have a chance to get your Burning Man ticket and prepare for months to come out here check out our other videos and don't forget to subscribe.