hi adrienne,

lots of people do burning man sober (though lots don't). there are sober camps, but i don't what they are off-hand. many, if not most, theme camps are sober-friendly. despite its reputation, burning man is not all about getting shit-faced. if you want to be in a theme camp, i'd suggest getting out and about in the NYC burning man community (see below). it's nice to be a local-based camp, because it's nice to be able to meet your campmates in person beforehand (and to see them easily afterwards). if you don't hook up with a theme camp, you can always just go and camp in the non-theme camp area; your neighbors often then become your instant camp.

there is a NYC burning man happy hour every wednesday (at a bar; location differs). if you want to avoid the bar scene, there is also group that goes on a sober outing every other week or so (to museums, parks, pot luck dinners, restaurants, etc.) to get the details you may have to slog through the NYC burning man email list. go to lists.burningman.com/mailman...ork-list to sign up. this is a VERY active email list, so do not use your primary email address for this. there is a NYC burning man book club too, which gets together to discuss a book (every other week or so).

most people from NYC fly into reno and rent a car or have a ride arranged in reno. go not run a tight schedule when leaving burning man, because the traffic out of black rock city can take a long time (thousands of cars all trying to get to the highway at the same exact time).