Burning Man Arts Festival / Music Festival Every year at the end of August

Itching for some self-realization with a side of communal epiphany and enlightenment? Could you use some you time with the omnipresent comfort of a collective struggle? Or do you simply want to go to a remote town with zero cellphone service for a week?

Burning Man, a week-long annual festival held in Black Rock Desert, Nevada since 1986, gives you a place to celebrate self-reliance while socializing and creating communal works of art and self-expression. In 2012, over 56,000 people participated in the festival, up substantially from the twenty guests at the inaugural Burning Man.

Attendees of Burning Man are encouraged to bring whatever food, water, and shelter they need to survive, because once you pay admission to enter Black Rock Desert, you’re on your own. Burning Man is a commerce-free event, so there’s no supermarket or sporting goods store around. Once inside Burning Man, you cannot drive cars but must instead ride bikes or walk to other locations. You are strongly encouraged to interact with others, create communities, and share experiences and resources.

Burning Man is nearly impossible to describe to someone who hasn’t been there. Each year, the camp’s theme influences different art and social interaction among festival-goers. Past camp themes at Burning Man have included American Dream, The Body, Fertility, and Rites of Passage. And on the last night of the festival, guests surround the Burning Man itself – a nearly one hundred-foot-tall burning wooden effigy – to reflect and bond.

Tickets for Burning Man are only available online and start at $380 per person for the entire festival, while in-and-out passes -- required if you want to drive out of Black Rock Desert and come back at any point during Burning Man -- are $20. Burning Man organizers strongly suggest staying inside city limits during the duration of the festival to fully experience the event.