Music festival road trip survival guide

Whether you’re staying local and attending Splendor in the Grass, following Groovin’ The Moo around the country, or even making the pilgrimage to Coachella, Burning Man, or Glastonbury, you’re going to need a solid road trip plan.

In every friendship group there’s a planner, and when it comes to surviving a music festival road trip, this pal is going to be the one everyone relies on. Planning which festivals you want to go to will obviously be crucial, but what about getting there? Will it require an overnight stop somewhere? Or can you take turns driving to the ultimate destination? Every festival is different, so planning is key. Will you need a camping or parking pass for where you’re headed? It’s always the finer details that can be the most annoying, but it’s worth getting on top of them early.

If you’re headed overseas, but the festival is a bit of a commute from where you fly into, sorting out hire cars is going to be super important, as will insurance, and making sure you’re able to drive legally in the country you’re in. Having done the West Hollywood to Palm Springs road trip to Coachella, the most important thing you’ll find out is – never trust ANYONE when it comes to estimations on how long it’s going to take you to get to your destination. What usually is a just under 2 hour drive from West Hollywood to Palm Springs, took nearly 5 hours thanks to traffic of close to 200,000 festival-goers making their own way there. Check out our tips for Aussie drivers visiting the USA.

Whose car you take on the journey is worth organizing well in advance. No one wants to be cramped in the backseat for hours on end making your way from Canberra to Byron Bay for Splendor, but you also don’t want to deal with the headache of waiting for the NRMA on the side of the highway because you’ve broken down. It sounds simple, but when you’re traveling in a car without any working air-con, music and you’re sitting amongst camping gear and bags, you’re most likely going to wish you had put more than 20 seconds of thought into the decision. And if hiring a bigger car is your best bet, and you ARE heading to Splendor, you might want to reconsider the Wicked Camper vans, and remember the boycott the festival called for on them back in 2016. Yes that right – some festivals can dictate your transport. Start your search for the perfect festival machine here on carsales.

While it seems obvious, but choosing the people you want to experience the highs and lows of road tripping with is important. Sure you might get along with someone 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, but are going to get along with them across an entire long weekend where you’re forced to sit in the same car as them for hours on end? Some of the best times have been road trips with only a few of my closest friends. And I’ve heard horror stories of when it didn’t go so well – like when a group of pals actually did make their way to Splendor, only to have a falling out, and one of them making off with her car in the middle of the night.

Perhaps one of the most important, if not THE important aspect of any road trip – snacks. Usually an hour into the trip the hangry voices come out, and you’ll be required to stop for food. While there’s generally never any shortage of fast food outlets on major highways, should you be passing through quieter areas it might mean finding a café, or even a Servo run. However there’s one thing you don’t want – and that’s food poisoning from a dodgy sanga picked up at a Servo in the middle of nowhere with several hours left to drive, and public restrooms your only choice.

Wherever you go, you want to enjoy the opportunity to turn your out of office on, take turns with the AUX cord, and enjoy the company of your nearest and dearest!

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Related: Five tips for travelling in road-trip convoy

Related: Five tips for successfully travelling in road trip convoy