What time would you leave from salt lake City?

[Mreedon]

Hi! I'm just starting to plan my first burn for 2020 (never too early to start planning right!), And I'm curious when would you leave from salt lake City? I don't want to leave too early and get suck into D lot, but I don't want to leave too late and have to sit in more traffic than necessary. Thanks for any tips!

[Sham]

Leave at 7:00 am. I hope this info helps.

You will also have hundreds if not thousands of tiny decisions like this while you plan your adventure to Black Rock City. It's best to become decisive and self sufficient, as your survival in the desert for a week depends on it.

Introduce yourself and tell us a bit about you. What motivates you and what do you expect to get from your trip to Burning Man?

[some seeing eye]

Welcome to ePlaya!

If you live in Salt Lake, you can meet your regional and get the benefit of their experience. There are ride sharing opportunities out of the Salt Lake region.

That route has break, water, fuel, and fresh food shopping opportunities, even dinner at Brunos - famous for the house-made ravioli. So leave early and adjust you arrival time with strategic breaks.

Outbound, the same. It's almost universal that people are very tired, hungry, and dusty. There are a lot of vehicle accidents as a result.

Your regional new friends will have the down low on outbound stops too. If you have the time for a full overnight in Reno side trip outbound, keep an eye out here for the 2020 Barbie Death Village Reno hotel deal. There is nothing like a shower, casino buffet, and a real bed.

[Chowski]

The best time to leave Salt Lake City is immediately.

[mgb327]

^ +1000

[Papa Bear]

If you bring up directions from Google, it will tell you that SLC to Fernley, NV is a bit under 7 hours (and it will likely be at least 7 once you include stops for fuel, etc). Add to that at least three more hours to the playa, and likely a lot more by the time you make it through the line. That's a minimum of 10 hours of driving.

What I would recommend is that you leave the day before you want to arrive on playa and reserve a hotel in Fernley (or Reno, if you don't mind adding a few more miles). You can pick up your water and anything else you need in Reno/Fernley, get a final shower and some decent rest, and then head for the playa refreshed.

You don't know how long you'll wind up waiting in line, or what the conditions will be - you could be setting up early in the morning in a whiteout, in the heat of a blazing sun, or you could wind up sitting in your car for hours waiting for the rain to subside and the playa to dry. If you're at all strung out from the drive, it's going to make it all that much harder to do, and you'll be spending part of your burn trying to recover.

Might be a bit different if you are driving an RV, of course.

[Canoe]

... Might be a bit different if you are driving an RV, of course.

It most certainly can.
It's not necesarily walk-in-the-park driving either.

You might find yourself driving with the wheel at 12:00 turned to 10:00 or 2:00, just to have the RV drive straight on the road with the side wind hitting it. And that's on the flat before you start climbing up the NV hills. At the gas station there I nearly got put on my ass by the wind as I watched the station's garbage bins blow away down the road. (This was returning from BM, so the wind was from the right rear; ripped the RV's closed bathroom vent open and pressured the bathroom to the point it popped one of the walls off the studs. No charge at the rental place in SLC...)

When you're in the hills, the changing wind can be another type of joy.

You don't want either type of drive while you're tired. And you don't want to be tired/fatigued for the drive from Wadsworth up to the playa while you're fully loaded (long braking distance) and in line with everybody else, etc..