RV and car camping at Burning Man

A rig can be the best room on the playa and the fastest way to have a bad week with the neighbors and the BLM. The rental page is where we send people who are still choosing a truck or an RV, and it is honest about companies that will and will not send a vehicle to this desert. This page starts after that decision. You have a vehicle. It has to sit in the dust for a week, hold the water you brought, and leave without a spill. The Survival Guide is the rulebook. Their camping tips are the front door to the RV and gray-water sections.

The lessons that repeat are not about decorating the rig. They are about the hose you must not mix up, the tank you must not open onto the playa, and the dust that will be inside the cab if the door is treated like a house door.

We are an independent outfitter. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Burning Man Project. The event name is used so you know which week this gear is for.

It stays parked

Their guide says Black Rock City is a walking and biking city. You park at your campsite and leave the vehicle there. Public agency vehicles, marked service vehicles, and licensed mutant vehicles are the ones that move. A stock RV, a golf cart, an ATV, and a scooter you thought was handy are not a tour of the city. The speed limit they publish is 5 mph where driving is allowed at all. Pedestrians and bicycles have the right of way.

Walk-in camping, past K between 2:00 and 5:00 on their city plan, is the area with no vehicles and no RVs. If that is your plan, the vehicle stays on K and you carry everything in. Read the current map before you aim a rig at a block that will not take it.

Logos get covered. Their guide is sharp about it: a work van, a rental truck, a rental RV, all of it. Black Rock City is a decommodified zone. Alter the logos before you get to the gate, not in an argument with a greeter. Taking pictures of a product on playa to promote it is on their not-okay list too. We sell gear for the week. We do not want the week used as an ad.

Dust at the door

Every time the door opens, the playa comes in. The habit is small. Shoes off or changed at the step. A towel along the threshold. Windows up. If you run the fan, recirculate, so you are not pulling a dust cloud through the cabin on purpose. A whiteout is not the time to "air it out."

Do not vacuum dry playa inside the rig and call it clean. You will redeposit it in the vents. The way out is the time for a real clean, and the after-the-burn guide is that sequence: blow the mats outside, downwind, goggles on, then vinegar on the film. Water alone smears alkali into paste. A damp rag and a hope is how the dashboard stays chalky until next spring.

Vinegar in a labeled spray bottle is the bottle for the panels, the bike, and the step. It does not go in the fresh tank. It does not get mixed with bleach. Keep it off screens and sealed electronics. A short blast of canned air is for vents and ports, can upright, outside. The handheld blower is for floor mats and bins, not for the inside of a laptop.

A closed car at noon is also an oven for any battery you left in it. Power stations, tool packs, and phone banks live in the shade, which is a power-page rule and a vehicle rule at the same time.

Level, then trust the tanks

A fridge, a sink, and a night of sleep all complain when the rig is tipped. Interlocking leveling blocks go under a tire or a jack. The Camco set we list says, on the maker's instructions, not to stack higher than 4.5 inches. Chock the wheels before you climb under anything. Level before you pop slides or trust the tanks. The bright color is how you find them at exodus. Count the set. A block left under the rig is an expensive piece of moop.

Blocks level a rig. They do not anchor shade. The shade, if it is yours, still gets lags or rebar, and those stakes still get pulled. A shade structure tied only to the RV bumper is how a gust tests both. The wind guide is that job. Read the securing page before you decide the vehicle is the anchor.

Two hoses that never meet

A drinking-water hose is for a potable fill, before the playa or at a real potable spigot. The one we list is Camco's 50-foot drinking-water hose. Cap both ends for the drive. Coil the extra. Fifty feet is a lot of hose for a jug fill. It never shares a bin with the sewer hose, and it never touches gray water.

The sewer kit is for a pump-out truck or a legal dump on the way home. There is no dump on playa. Their guide says you may not dump gray or black water on the playa, and that the BLM cites leaks and dumps. If you see a truck marked for RV servicing, they say you can flag it down. The only vendor they authorize for cash pump-outs is United Site Services, and the note in the guide is specific: pumping removes gray and black water. It is not a potable fill. Leave a path to the rig so the hose can reach. Their trucks do not snake through a shade structure. Gloves on. Cap both ends before you coil it.

Know how full the tanks are before you arrive. A week of dishes and showers in a small gray tank is how people start looking for a bad idea on Thursday. Wipes, shorter showers, and a jug you can carry are how the tank lasts. Their guide says the less gray water you make, the less you haul.

If the bedroom is a car

A lot of first years sleep in a tent and use the car as a closet. The car is still a dust pump if the doors stay open, and it is still a bad place for a battery at noon. Sleep in the tent under shade, which is the tent note, unless the vehicle is actually set up as the room and you have a plan for the air. Cracking the windows during a dust day fills the car.

Wash water from a solar shower or a foot tub goes in a gray-water jug, lid on, labeled. Strain food out of dish water first. The jug never sits next to the drinking jugs without a label a tired person can read. Their wastewater section is the escalation: a spill that fits in a five-gallon bucket gets dug up and hauled off, and anything bigger is a Ranger call so their hazmat team can help. Digging is not a hobby. Their guide also limits holes. Do not invent a pit.

Under the vehicle

Their guide says to check under the vehicle daily for oil and other fluids, especially older rigs. If it is leaking, dig up the contaminated playa, contain it for disposal off site, fill the hole, and put a drip pan or something you can secure under the leak. A stain you leave is not subtle. It is how a camp meets the Earth Guardians and, if it is ignored, a citation. They give you 24 hours to fix the issues their team finds. Use the hours.

At the end, the moop under the rig is the moop people miss. Stakes, screws, zip-tie tails, a bottle cap that rolled under the step. Their leave-no-trace section asks for a shoulder-to-shoulder sweep and a magnet bar or a rake for the final pass. A magnet finds steel. It does not find aluminum, glass, or ash. Eyes still matter. Move the vehicle only when the patch it was sitting on has been looked at, and look at the patch again after it moves, because the drip was hiding.

The magnetic sweeper is that last pass for nails, screws, and the lag you did not know you dropped. Carry it more than you shove it. The handle on the model we list has a reputation for snapping if you ram it. Contractor bags hold what it catches. Empty it into a bag, not onto the hex next door.

The drive out

Cover and secure the load. Their guide says light items on the bottom, weight even, nothing that can blow off on the highway. Do not dump trash in the towns on the way home. That sentence is theirs, and it is how this desert stays available. A sealed bag of clean clothes in the cab is how the driver is not wearing the week all the way to Reno. Vinegar and a rag at the first pavement, so you are not depositing a white film and calling the car clean.

• —Parked at camp. Bikes and feet for the rest of the city.
• —Logos covered before the gate.
• —Shoes and a towel at the door. Windows up in the dust.
• —Level blocks counted, under the limit on the label.
• —Drinking hose and sewer hose in different bags, caps on.
• —No dump on playa. Pump-out is removal, not a water fill.
• —Gray water in a labeled jug. Spills dug up or called in.
• —Daily look underneath for fluids.
• —Magnet and a line sweep after the rig moves.
• —Load strapped. Trash hauled to a real dump, not a town can you do not have permission to use.

The RV week kit is the hose, the sewer kit, the blocks, the vinegar, and the magnet. It is not a rental and it is not a shade structure. If the rig is only the closet, you still need the tent, the water, and the lights. The vehicle is a room or a trunk. It is not a substitute for the week.