Time in US

Probably one of the first questions for an international traveler is

How much time do I need in the US?

Followed by

I heard this is a 8 days festival, so 10 days should be plenty!!!!

Hope (or naiveness?)

If this was your train of thoughts, first of all I love your optimism!. Then I proceed to break your dreams 😉

If I didn’t have commitments in the “default World” I would probably stay from 1-2 weeks before the event to at least 2 weeks after the event. And if you are saying Hey! Are you insane?! well probably but there are reasons. Let me go through it.

First things first, when is Burning Man 2025?

The Gate officially opens at 23:59 of Sunday August 24th and the event finishes on Monday September 1st

No, not this Gate

This doesn’t mean that we want to enter when the Gate officially opens, though 😃 Because:

  • Entering on Sunday involves a long traffic line
  • If you have a “Will Call” ticket, on Sunday means an extra couple of hours to pick it up (as opposed to ~10 minutes pre-event)
  • You don’t have the time to acclimatize to Burning Man
  • You don’t have the chance to contribute to the Build

Me and Stefan can allow up to 6 people (plus us) starting on Thursday 21th. Probably entering Thursday 21th or Friday 22th is a good time to shoot at. If it turns out that we are more than 8 (that seems likely), we will find ways for getting early entrance permits but some people will need to volunteer for the build with the Org (this is something I would highly recommend anyway and I will have to do)

Also, this doesn’t mean that we want to leave on Monday September 1st (actually almost for sure we don’t want! even worse than entering when the Gates open!). Because:

  • Monday is the “Exodus” day. It is common to stay 5-6 hours under the sun just for doing the few KMs that bring you to the normal road
  • You don’t have the chance to contribute to the Strike (dismounting things)
  • We may be very tired and driving is almost for sure a bad idea

When should I land in US, then?

This is generally less important than “When to leave the US” and it largely depends from wether you can work remotely or not.

WARNING: Unless you are US Citizen you probably cannot work remotely but probably you can travel for business. These are not the same thing. Happy to elaborate in person/via chat/etc. with the understanding that I am not an immigration lawyer 😄

If you can work/travel for business

You may want to travel over the weekend so that you don’t need a day off for the actual travel. This means that you may want to travel the weekend of August 16th-17th or, if you have time, August 9th-10th. I would suggest on Saturday so that Sunday can be used for testing the tent and other things that you may want to do with light (and when you don’t work)

This is great for adjusting to the Time Zone, doing errands, buying things, etc without too much stress.

If you cannot work/travel for business

In this case the requirement is flipped and you may want to arrive as late as possible pushing yourself through a bit of a rushed shopping/errands/etc. I would leave at least 1 full day between landing and entering if you land in Reno, NV. And 2 full days if you land in San Francisco. 1 full day for shopping/errands (and 1 day for traveling from SF to Reno).

So, assuming we want to enter on Friday 22th, I would suggest to fly (at least) on the Wednesday 20th to Reno or Tuesday 21th to San Francisco.

When should I leave the US?

This is simple:

Under NO circumstance you want to buy a return ticket before 2-3 full days after you plan to leave the Playa.

This for a number of reasons:

  • The gate may be closed (e.g., Rain, Sandstorm, Lost child) and leaving may simply not be possible
  • The car/Van needs to be cleaned before returning (or paying like 800$+ of cleaning fees from the rental)
  • You need a shower (or two) 😂
  • (Not strictly necessary but highly suggested) You might want some time to decompress

So if you plan to leave on Tuesday 2nd, this means you don’t want to leave before at least Thursday 4th (that is what I generally do and I hate my life) or, better, Friday 5th (or the weekend). Keep in mind that the flight lands the next day in Europe.

OK OK so?

As you may have noticed, it ends up in 3 weeks out. You may compromise here and there but it would not save you much time anyway. For what it is worth, I plan (but not bought the ticket yet) to fly to Reno on Saturday or Sunday 16-17 August and coming back on Friday 5th.