CampV
NATURITA, COLORADO
Distance From Denver
338 miles
Accommodation
Jupe
I’ve never been to Burning Man. But lying on CampV’s floating dock in my swimsuit while EDM blared through speakers onshore and people danced barefoot, I got a sense of what the annual Nevada festival might be like. The similarity in vibe wasn’t all that surprising: Natalie Binder, one of the founders of CampV, a two-year-old outdoor retreat in Naturita, says she was inspired to build community and energize people in this rural part of Colorado through art.
Our accommodation for the weekend certainly was creative: a futuristic-looking Jupe (basically a rectangular, elevated tent) made of Baltic birch and wrapped in canvas. It sat among five other Jupes, 12 cabins, four luxury tents, three Airstreams, and RV and tent sites on land that once composed a company town, where 1940s-era cabins housed engineers who worked at a nearby uranium mill. The property also has a stand-alone bathhouse with two separate restrooms; a large field with a fire pit; a 2.5-mile, on-property mountain biking and hiking loop; and—in true Burning Man fashion—nearly a dozen art installations.
Locals have learned to book stays here to coincide with CampV’s events, such as regular live music or the musicand-art Planet V Fest held over Memorial Day weekend. However, my husband and I were there seeking something else: relaxation and spotty Wi-Fi.
We were (hallelujah!) mostly able to disconnect and were pleased to find that while the Jupes were more rustic than many glampsites we’ve experienced, there was a queensize bed, solar lighting and charging outlets, clean drinking water in a jug, and a private deck. The composting toilets were an easy walk away, and the shower was perfectly serviceable. The setting felt rugged enough that we left our food in a cooler in our car so as not to entice wildlife, but rugged is relative: There were lattes, breakfast burritos, and booze for sale at the CampV bar, and one morning, we ordered breakfast in bed.
There was plenty to do on-site besides eat, too. We walked 10 minutes up the gravel driveway from our Jupe for yoga and a sound bath in one of the historical, still-standing water tanks from mill times. Then we wandered into the “Prairie Wind Chapel,” an artwork composed of three organs set up in a churchlike tent that originally was built for 2015’s Burning Man festival.
As the sun dropped, we strolled back up the hill to watch the stars turn on one by one, then dozens at a time, from a blanketed
