Camp Nomadia 2010 – A Burning Man Theme Camp

As many of you already know, we are both Burning Man participants – Chris having gone since 1999 and us together since 2007. And for the past 2 years we have hosted a theme camp specifically for nomadic minded folks. For 2010, we will be doing the same – and we invite you to join us!

What is Burning Man?

Not unlike the Grand Canyon, Burning Man is something that can’t adequately be described with words or pictures — you really need to experience it to understand it. The basics, however, are rather simple — nearly 50,000 people come together in the the remote and desolate Black Rock Desert of northern Nevada during the week before Labor Day every year to build a temporary city dedicated to ”community, art, self-expression and self reliance”.

There is no vending, no food stalls, no t-shirts, no main stage, no ”official” agenda, and no corporate sponsorships of any kind allowed. The only city infrastructure provided are porta-potties, ice sales, and a Center Camp cafe that sells lemonade and lattes. There aren’t even any trash cans — every participant is responsible for carrying out not only their own trash, but any other trash they find, making Burning Man the largest ”leave no trace” event in the world.

There is however amazing art, music, fire (lots of fire!), food, architecture, technology, and even an airport to be found. All of it is created by other attendees, and offered to each other via a ”gift economy” where even bartering is frowned upon.

Burning Man operates on a ”no spectators” philosophy — and there is intentionally no distinction made between audience and performers. Everyone attending Burning Man is encouraged to find some way to actively participate, whether this looks like working as a volunteer for the city itself or helping on one of the many giant architectural projects, or doing other things — such as gifting handmade jewelry, giving a fire dance performance, hosting a BBQ feast for your neighbors, playing live music, offering aerial tours, showing off autonomous swarming networked robots, giving rides on a magic carpet, creating a roller disco, offering math tutoring (seriously!), giving dance lessons, or even just offering cold icee pops to passers-by on a hot day.

No one is being paid to perform. Whether you stumble across a world-renowned DJ spinning, a famous artist painting, or a full-on circus (complete with big top tent) performing a high-wire show, you will marvel realizing that every one of them came through the front gate having purchased the same tickets that you did.

The physical centerpiece of the city is a giant wooden man that is burned on Saturday night, but with so much other stuff going on all week long the ”Burning Man” itself is hardly the focus of the event any more.

Camp Nomadia

One of the things we crave as we travel is a deeper connection with community. Our travel allows us to connect with people all over the place, but we find a certain special connection with other folks who are also called to a nomadic lifestyle and who are out traveling the world.

To help bring together other nomads, in 2008 we we founded a new theme camp at Burning Man — Camp Nomadia. It’s a camp specifically for nomadic souls to come together and converge to create a temporary home for us all.

The last two years have been a great success, with 2009 cresting with a population of 70 neighbors full of wanderlust. We enjoyed camping with other nomads as well as hosting several nomadic happy hours to bring together other nomads camped elsewhere in Black Rock City. Over the course of the week, a wide range of amazing folks came together to connect, swap stories, and share experiences.  We also hosted a widely popular “Technomadic Lifestyles Workshop” and had around a 100 attendees craving information on how to make this lifestyle work!

We are planning to host Camp Nomadia again this year at Burning Man, and we’d like to extend a special invitation to all nomadic spirits out there to join us.

As nomads tend to be used to being very self-sufficient and independent, Camp Nomadia has intentions of being a very chill no-frills camp. We will have no central group infrastructure, except perhaps a shade structure. This means each nomad is responsible for all his own needs — food, water, cooking, clean-up, shelter, shower, power, greywater handling, etc. But unlike many other more infrastructure-heavy camps, we also have no camp fees.

Camp Nomadia is open to current nomads, digital nomads, future nomads, wanna-be nomads, part time nomads, domestic nomads, international nomads, technomads, low-technomads, former nomads, RV nomads, couch-surfing nomads, land nomads, rail nomads, backpacking nomads, sailing nomads, or folks who just want to be around nomads (yes, your non-nomadic friends can join too!). We welcome Burning Man veterans and virgins alike.

Camp Nomadia 2010 Events

Even if you’re not planning to camp with us, come join us for any of our events we’ll be hosting .. it’s a great opportunity to mingle with other nomads and learn more about the lifestyle.

We’re currently planning 3 ‘Nomadic Happy Hours’ – Tuesday & Thursday from 4-6pm and Sunday from 3-5pm.  And we’ll also be repeating our Technomadic Lifestyle workshop on Thursday just prior to the happy hour at 3pm.

Interested in camping with us? Here’s the scoop…

For more information on our camp, including how to join us – please refer to our Camp Nomadia information Page.

We look forward to seeing you on the playa  – whether camped as our neighbor, or perhaps at one of our events!