Burning Man
Nevada, USA · Black Rock City
3 places pinned — click any one for its story.
The place
Burning Man is an annual gathering in the Black Rock Desert of northern Nevada — part art festival, part social experiment, part temporary civilization. Begun on a San Francisco beach in 1986 and moved to the playa in 1990, it draws tens of thousands of people who build Black Rock City from nothing, live by a gift economy with no money changing hands, and burn a giant wooden effigy — "the Man" — on the penultimate night.
Katia and I went out to the playa in 2010 — dust, wild art, monumental art cars at dusk, and a week completely off the map with no cell signal and no trace left behind. Something everyone should see once.
Places I visited
History & facts for each spot — with a “then & now” archival photo where one exists. Every one has its own page; open it for the full write-up and all the photos.
The temporary city of ~70,000 that rises from the desert each year in a vast horseshoe grid, and vanishes without a trace a week later — 'leave no trace' is the law of the playa.
Full history & photos →Read more on Wikipedia →A prehistoric lakebed — one of the flattest places on Earth — whose cracked alkali playa hosts the event and, the rest of the year, land-speed records.
Full history & photos →Read more on Wikipedia →Archival photo: Old Razorback Mountain (1969) — Wikimedia Commons
A wooden temple built anew each year as a place of remembrance, then burned in silence on the final night — the quiet counterpoint to the party.
Full history & photos →