Hi,
for me it was a whole different fusion experience to stay on the island. Done that only once in 2015.
Before i got hooked to this thing, i went to other festivals
like RaR, where theres more open-and-closing structure. There it felt okay to commute some 2km twice a day. In the morning we had nothing really to do, so we where literally awaiting our walks to the gate. Fusion always meant a lot of walking on the mainground, not to the mainground for me. Did not really much like the camp to be 30min offshore, specially when its hot or rainy or the way is crowdy. Felt a little stressfull with that. A lot of people enjoy that walk though.
For me its easier to get in the mood for things, be among 70k people and do my circles in that, when im somewhere in the golden triangle between Rootsbase, Stelzen aka Panne Eichel and Oase. Or somewhere a little south/east of that, depends on how well it works out to get there..
Last year missed acid pauli by sleeping to long [shame on me] but Palapa sounded pretty well in the camp then.
Be aware its not a quiet place to stay, 5 days of irregularities and youre fine with the things to come;-)
Its not been a problem for me to find sleep there, but im not much in need of 8h straight. When having the shorter ways i like to come back to the camp for a nap and not missing out half a day then.
dont camp to close to rootsbase id say. And earplugs, maybe some that cancel all noise for nights are nice to have and some audiophile floorwise.
and when theres bumblebees from the ground on your camp, look out where they go in and out and keep their gates open so they can do their business. And avoid to bring yellow things in general.
camping like said, public places around there are many. And keeping space for friends coming later is mostly possible on the regular ground, but i would not leave it alone or some crew will enter that space. On the Island seems to be more difficult to reserve space, but as we dont really know how its going to be organized this year its hard to predict.
good times, for sure!