Coachella: A guide to Tickets, Transport, Outfits & Much More

If you follow me on social media you’re probably already sick to death with my Coachella posts (soz not sorry). I’ve been dreaming about going to Coachella for years and decided that one way or another, 2017 would be my year! It certainly lived up to the hype and I had one amazing weekend!

The whole process of getting tickets and booking everything wasn’t an easy one so I’ve tried to cover as much as possible in this post. If you have any questions feel free to reach out!

Tickets

Pre-Sale tickets for the festival went on sale all the way back in June. General release tickets go on sale in January and luckily by then I was prepared and ready to nab mine. The actual process on the day of release is very stressful so you need to be ready with your account set up. I had the website open on both my iPhones, two laptops and my iPad.

I waited two to three hours (yes that’s right) in line, watching a little stick man move so slowly, it could, (and did) drive you insane. We knew weekend 1 tickets would be more in demand and even though it was also our weekend of choice, just to be safe we were ready to buy weekend two tickets on one of our devices each.

Weekend one basically doesn’t move, or at least it moves so slowly you can hardly notice. Weekend 2 is a little better. When you eventually get through you only have 15 minutes to complete your purchase, so as we became seconds away from the weekend two tickets we had to make the decision to stick with that and not wait for weekend one any longer. It was a good call because just as we got through, weekend one was announced as sold out. Seconds after we purchased weekend two tickets they were also sold out.

SO moral of the story, if you really want to go, take whatever tickets you can get!

Of course, there are websites like Stub Hub that will be selling them all year but I didn’t want the hassle of not knowing if I’d get them or not.

Flights

We flew from JFK, New York to LAX which was a six-hour flight. From there it was about a three-hour drive to Palm Springs. There is an airport in Palm Springs but flight prices tend to be much more expensive from there as it’s a smaller airport for smaller planes.

Naturally, flights are going to cost more during the two weekends Coachella is on.

Transport: To & from LAX

There’s a shuttle bus that can bring you from the airport to the main resorts in Palm Springs but we actually found a driver on the Coachella forum to pick us up instead for the same price. The bus costs approx $70 each way and the car service was only $10 more each. We figured the car would be more comfortable and quicker than the bus. Our main priority on Thursday was getting to the pool asap!

You can also search for drivers on Craig’s List. Many taxies and Uber drivers advertise these trips for the Coachella weekends.

Transport: To & from the Festival Grounds

We opted for the general tickets with the shuttle bus pass. The shuttle bus seemed like the best option getting to and from the festival and it stops along all the main resorts in Palm Springs.

You can also drive if you have a car (although I heard parking is a bit of a nightmare) and then there’s always Uber too. We actually took Uber to the Festival on the Friday and Saturday as it was only $15 between us all. We took one home on Friday night but it cost almost $60 and the walk to get one was pretty horrific, on top of the traffic leaving the festival which meant it took an hour to get home to our resort that was only 10 minutes away!

I would definitely recommend getting the shuttle buses at night. They have a good system in place and we never waited for too long to get on one.

Accommodation

We stayed at the La Quinta resort in a house we found on Airbnb. It was in the perfect location with a shuttle bus stopping outside to take us to and from the festival.

The resort had everything we needed and more including pools, restaurants, a gym, golf course and plenty more we probably didn’t even see. It’s a fancy family style resort but there were lots of other Coachella goers staying there too so the all round atmosphere was perfect.

I’ll leave the link to where we stayed HERE.

Coachella Need to Knows

You absolutely need

Water– It was between 35-40 degrees the whole weekend I was there. The heat was super intense and I would have died if I wasn’t constantly chugging water. The alcohol was an afterthought if I’m honest.

Food- We did a big grocery shop on Thursday and got enough food to eat a big breakfast and lunch each day before going to the festival. With it being so hot it can be easy to forget to eat but it’s important to force yourself so you don’t get sick.

Sunscreen– Desert & 40 degrees. I’ll say no more! I recommend a factor 50 dry oil spray. One application should last the whole evening if applied just before going to the festival. Aerosols are not allowed in btw.

Comfortable (but obv stylish) shoes- There’s a lot of walking involved so this is another no-brainer.

Bandana- It’s a desert so the sand and dirt can be horrible especially if there’s any wind. On the first day, I didn’t wear mine and totally lost my voice and felt very unwell. The next two days I wore it and noticed a big difference. People are not wearing them to be cool!

Sunglasses– For the sun of course but also again for the sand.

Phone battery pack– so you can snap as much as you like!

Don’t bother with:

Selfie sticks, DSLR cameras, large bags, heels. They’re a no-no and won’t be allowed in. Aerosols are also not allowed including sunscreen and face water spray. Mine were binned 🙁

Food

There are a lot of food vendors to choose from but most are pretty pricey. I paid $31 for a ham & cheese sandwich with fries…. It was the best H&C I’ve ever had….. but $31!! We got rice bowls another night which was delish!

Like I said above, eat before you go to the festival to save money but don’t totally skip the food because you’ll feel like you can’t eat with the heat but when you do you’ll notice you actually really needed it.

Alcohol

Compared to most festivals I’ve been to, Coachella is super chilled. You don’t see messy drunk people and the pushing in crowds is very minimal. I think this is mainly down to the fact it’s almost impossible to drink alcohol! Yes, there is alcohol for sale in the Heineken’s beer gardens, but it’s just so hot people are more concerned with drinking water.

We had a few drinks each day in our villa, mimosas for breakfast, Coronas for brunch and some harder stuff while getting ready, to be specific. So going to the festival we would be on a nice buzz, but once there we really didn’t have much. We actually managed to sneak some drink in on the first day (they don’t pat you down, only check your bags) but we didn’t touch it! On the first day I struggled with the heat so much I didn’t have anything other than gallons of water. And during the other two days, I only had one or two Heineken’s. (They are $10 each for FYI).

See my cheeky alcohol smuggling tools HERE. They work every time… (Because no one questions “belly fat”).

The beautiful thing was we never woke up with a hangover and the high you get from just being there is enough, for me anyway!

The Heineken’s beer gardens are nice places to go for some down time and we made friends from hanging out in there. You have to be over 21 and need to go to an age check desk each day to get a wristband that allows you in and out of the gardens.

Outfits

And last but certainly not least is the most important part of Coachella. The Outfits! It’s very simple, wear what you want, just make sure to have fun with it.