One of the most common questions we get asked is, “How much does it cost to go to Burning Man?” Several different elements combine to answer this question, with your approach to each factoring into the costs involved. These elements include:
- Tickets
- Camping Style
- Transportation for You and Your Gear, and
- Gear
Tickets
As we discussed in our Tickets article in this guide, there are a lot of different ways to get tickets to Burning Man. If you’re diligent and keep at it, we feel strongly that you can find a $575 face-value ticket, $660-ish after fees, taxes, and shipping.
Camping Style
In our Camping Options article, we urged you to camp in a cost-efficient, comfortable tent with a theme camp where you have access to a good level of resources and a quality shade structure. Dues for this theme camp should be in the $500 range.
Transportation
Our Transportation guide recommend that you fly to Reno from Houston, spend a night in a hotel, then take the Burner Express Bus into Burning Man. This should cost you around $400 for your plane ticket, $400 for two nights at a hotel like the Peppermill (before and after the burn), and $200 for round-trip tickets on the Burner Express Bus with a shopping stop. For you, this is $1,000.
We recommend you ship your gear on the Houston Burning Man Community Truck. Assuming you bring a bike, a camp chair, and four footlockers of gear, this should cost you approximately $250.
So, taken together, we’re looking at roughly $1,250 for transportation.
Gear
In our Packing List, we detailed a list of recommended items you should bring. If you buy all of these, it’ll set you back something like $500. Let’s double that figure to provide room in our budget for nice-to-have items and incidentals to get to approximately $1,000.
Putting It All Together
Adding up the above, you’re looking at something like $2,910. This is why we typically tell people to plan on budgeting somewhere around $3,000 to go to their first Burning Man.
Can you go for less? Sure! Bring less stuff, skip the hotels, consider carpooling instead of flying and taking the Burner Express Bus. You’re only limited by your creativity and resourcefulness. But, the $3,000 figure about gives a good starting place for the path of least resistance to getting from Houston to Burning Man and back with all the things you need to burn healthy and safely
We elaborate more on Staying Healthy in the next article in this guide.
(Background photo by Rob)