USA Guide
The Southwest
Reno
The self-proclaimed "biggest little city in the world," Reno, on I-80 near the California border, is a somewhat downmarket version of Las Vegas, with miles of gleaming slot machines and poker tables, along with tacky wedding chapels and quickie divorce courts. While the town itself may not be much to look at, its setting – at the foot of the snowcapped Sierra Nevada, with the Truckee River winding through the center – is superb. The casinos are concentrated downtown, along Virginia Street on either side of the railroad tracks.
Nevada's legendary Burning Man Festival is celebrated in a temporary, vehicle-free community known as Black Rock City, way out in the Black Rock Desert, twelve miles north of tiny Gerlach, which is itself a hundred miles north of Reno. The festival takes on a different theme each year, always with a strong emphasis on spontaneity and mass participation. An exhilarating range of performances, happenings and art installations culminates in the burning of a giant human effigy on the final Saturday. After that, in theory at least, Black Rock City simply disappears without trace.