I’ve been to the playa in RVs many times, and it always sucks. The RV cabinets break, the bathroom smells horrible (even if you don’t use it, which you shouldn’t), the grey water is always overflowing, it uses a zillion gallons of gas, and it always costs way more than it should.

So last year we built hexayurts, and they rocked. We started with a little model.

IMG_0981

The idea is that the six-sided building is created entirely (or nearly so) from 4’x8′ fiberglas panels. It folds flat for shipping, then it folds out on the playa. I’ll just narrate our building process briefly here because this is all very well documented all over the net. In particular, we recommend Camp Danger’s howto videos.

First, prepare yourself for a lot of taping. You spend hours, even days, cutting panels and covering the exposed fiberglas with massive sheets of giant packing tape.

hexayurt-1-7564hexayurt-2-7567

Then the pieces get taped together. There are two kinds of taping: the permanent hinge taping, and the installation-specific taping. I’ll leave all the explanation to Camp Danger, but suffice to say here that you have to pay close attention.

hexayurt-4-7587

We added a plywood cover to the door side, and that turned out to be a big win. The plywood attaches to the door by bolts and big washers which can be seen in the picture below.

hexayurt-5-7593

Then we cut windows into two sides. One of the many advantages of hexayurts is that they pack flat. This helps SO MUCH.

IMG_1040

We were only on the playa for 5 nights, and it wasn’t all that dusty in 2014, so we didn’t test the yurt as intensely as possible (I don’t have any on-playa photos). However, it was spacious, cool, and easy to setup. I can’t imagine a better way to habitate. Highly recommended!