I can’t believe that #Coachella is officially over! I went, I saw, I conquered and it’s OVER! Now I’m suffering from what I found out it called, “fluchella” which is apparently the sickness that comes after being in the desert for days with crazy winds, high temps in daytime and low temps at night but I wouldn’t change the experience for the world. I had the time of my life in The Valley so of course, I had to spill the tea about being fat and bougie at Coachella. This is going to be a three part series where I give the 4-1-1 on traveling, car camping and of course Coachella with all the outfit details included.

First, let’s about traveling to California. As we know, I live clear on the other side of the USA from Cali so of course, flying was the only option for me (Road trips are not my friend over 3 hours). There are plenty of cities to fly into to be close to Indio which is where Coachella is held. There is Palm Springs, Ontario, Santa Ana, Long Beach,  and Los Angeles, just to name a few. My best friend and I wanted to get the best bang for our buck so we decided to fly into LA a day early and stay an extra day before coming home. It was like two vacations in one.

When finding a flight I always turn to Southwest Airlines first because they always have deals flying out of Atlanta and I never have problems with them so to their app I went. A little side information, we bought our Coachella tickets in June of last year so we knew way in advance that we would be needing to find a flight.  I ended up finding a really good flight deal for $238 roundtrip compared to the $300+ flights on other airlines so we immediately booked.

This flight experience was like none other I have had, I found out how fat-friendly Southwest Airlines really is and they gained another cool point (Do peoples still say that?) with me. After hearing from a few fellow big girls that Southwest provides a person of size with an extra seat for free as long as there is room on the plane, the theory was put to test. Let me tell you, not only do they offer you the extra seat without judgment they even let you and your travel party priority board the plane. Now I am plus size but I don’t think I fit the perimeters for a person of size but my best friend does. I thought that this was amazing and just made me want to fly Southwest more often, not to mention they provided us a nice voucher because our return flight was delayed. Southwest continues to be bomb.com in my book.

Since we were flying into LA, we needed to get a return car to drive down to Indio and to car camp so we decided to rent though Turo which is a car rental app were people can rent their personal cars or have a fleet of cars that they rent out. It’s similar to the normal rental companies expect no credit card is needed or credit check and a lot of times the prices are a lot cheaper. Definitely, check it out on your next trip.  We rented a Dodge Journey which was big girl friendly and gas efficient.

The drive to Indio was about 2 hours and 5 minutes with limited traffic, we left really early in the morning. The views are pretty scenic. Beautiful in my opinion! I joked that Cali has it all, the beach, the mountains, the desert, the sun, EVERYTHING! Once we arrived in Indio, we grab some breakfast and headed to The Valley to set up camp.

There you have it. Everything about my travel to LA to Indio and back. If you have any fun fat girl travel tips please leave them below. I have been traveling all my life (I am an Army Brat) so it’s in my blood to want to do so. Also if you appreciated this post let me know. Stay tuned for Fat and Bougie at Coachella: Car camping.

PS: This is not a sponsored post. I enjoyed my experience with these companies.