7 Things I learned as a First Timer at Coachella

I'm old. That's my main takeaway from this weekend's Coachella experience. Hah! I'd describe the weekend as an "exhausting party". Why? Read on for 7 learnings, especially if you've never been before (I wish I read something like this before I went):

Coachella Sunset, Coachella Butterfly, Festival Fashion, What to wear to Coachella

1. Wear whatever you want. No really, it's an all out costume situation and there's nothing you could wear that would be weird or out of place. Needless to say the people watching is A+.

2. Coachella parties are FAR away. Now I know why certain people only go for the parties and not the festival, because the parties are in BFE aka Palm Springs. Which leads me to my next point...

3. Plan. If you're not camping at the festival grounds, it's pretty imperative to have a good game plan for tackling parties and getting to the grounds to see your favorite performances. It takes a good 40 minutes from festival drop-off to actually getting in the festival. 50% of my weekend was spent in Ubers or standing in lines.

4. The Shoe Situation. We probably walked about 7-10 miles every day, most of the time through really dusty areas. Next time I would wear Nikes or Rainbows for comfort because the pain at the end of the night in your feet, back, and hips is no bueno.

5. Bring a bandana. Or else have black boogers. #nojoke

6. Pre-game. At the festival you can only drink in the beer tents which means you cannot grab a drink and walk to see another band across the festival grounds. That means you're either pounding every drink to leave to the next location or not drinking at all because it's not worth it.

7. Take it all in. Operationally, there's so many ways the Caochella experience can be improved but at the end of the day you just have to deal with it and enjoy the craziness. It's pretty mind blowing to look around and see 100K people all in one place rocking out to the same musician. On top of that, the sunsets and group dance parties are incredible.

A few snaps from the weekend: