Palm Springs Become a Travel Agent Near Me

California's greater Palm Springs area, which is made up of nine desert cities, is like a giant sandbox where adults play their favorite games—the most popular being golf—while worshipping the sun. Palm Springs itself is the most well known of the adjacent communities in the Coachella Valley, though all offer a similar type of vacation experience with good food, relaxing places to stay, pampering spas and plenty of opportunities to be outside.

The area is a must visit for lovers of midcentury modern architecture, as many of the genre's heavy hitters designed homes or businesses here that are still standing and in great shape. It has also long been known as a safe and friendly space for LGBTQ vacationers. Most visitors stay in trendy boutique hotels or country club-type resorts that have transformed the desert into a hip place to hang out and a lush semitropical paradise (and almost a natural one, in this case, because the entire Coachella Valley sits atop a large underground lake).

Many Palm Springs resorts offer golf courses and tennis courts, as well as lavish spas, sparkling swimming pools and fabulous places to drink and dine. A few even have horseback riding and hiking trails. Several also have casinos attached for those who want to add gambling to their itinerary.

Palm Springs has long been associated with Hollywood celebrities who lived or played there during Hollywood's Golden Age, which is why the streets have such names as Bob Hope Drive and Gene Autry Trail. With the introduction of the town's film festival and a couple of giant music festivals (Coachella and Stagecoach), young stars are now discovering what Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe made such as fuss about.

Despite the glitz and glitter of its famous residents and the wealth that is very much on display, the area can also be affordable as a family destination, especially if you're willing to brave the summer's triple-digit heatwaves. But reasonably priced accommodations can be found year-round, and lodging prices drop considerably in the summer months. Although temperatures in excess of 100 F/38 C may not sound appealing, heavy-duty air-conditioning, numerous pools and the city's oasislike atmosphere make them bearable.

Must See or Do

Sights—The iconic Tramway Oasis Gas Station; the Indian Canyons; Palm Springs Aerial Tramway; the Coachella Valley Preserve; Sunnylands center and gardens.

Museums—Palm Springs Art Museum; Palm Springs Air Museum for the one of the world's largest collections of flyable World War II aircraft; Cabot's Pueblo Museum; General Patton Memorial Museum; Ruddy's 1930 General Store Museum.

Memorable Meals—Spectacular views at Peaks on Mount San Jacinto; divine dessert and wine at Johannes; a romantic wood-fired ribeye for two at Workshop Kitchen and Bar; unique pizza toppings at Birba Palm Springs; Wally's Desert Turtle's unbelievable service and themed rooms for dinner.

Late Night—The Village Pub bar and grill; High Bar; Bootlegger Tiki; the Agua Caliente Casino Resort Spa; Pappy and Harriet's Pioneertown Palace, Toucans Tiki Lounge's drag revue.

Walks—Scenic pathways and sculptures at Civic Center Park; the trails at Moorten Botanical Garden and Cactarium; Tahquitz Canyon; downtown Palm Springs's celebrity-studded Walk of Stars.

Especially for Kids—Hands-on exhibits at the Children's Discovery Museum of the Desert; climbing the colorful Salvation Mountain; strolling the orchards at Oasis Date Gardens; play a round at Tahquitz Creek Resort's golf course; Boomer's rocket-speed go-karts; bighorn sheep and coyotes at The Living Desert.

Geography

Palm Springs lies at the western edge of the Coachella Valley, 110 mi/177 km southeast of Los Angeles. The valley extends for approximately 45 mi/72 km along a northwest-southeast axis between the San Jacinto Mountains and the Santa Rosa Mountains on the west and the Little San Bernardino Mountains on the east. Palm Springs sits at the base of Mount San Jacinto (10,834 ft/3,359 m), towering over the city on its north side.

The mountain (snow-capped in winter) is incised by deep canyons where native fan palms are fed by natural springs. The San Andreas Fault runs along the base of the Little San Bernardino Mountains, which merge north with the San Jacinto Mountains. Access to the valley is via the San Gorgonio Pass. Palm Springs is at 450 ft/140 m elevation, but the valley slopes gradually east to the Salton Sea, 227 ft/70 m below sea level. Interstate 10 runs through the center of the valley, connecting Los Angeles with Phoenix, Arizona.

The term "Palm Springs" is often used to encompass nine desert resort communities—Desert Hot Springs, Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Coachella and Indio—that occupy the Coachella Valley. With the exception of Desert Hot Springs, which lies on the east side of the valley, the cities are located between Interstate 10 and Highway 111, the valley's commercial thoroughfare, which snakes along the foot of the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountains. The cities are laid out in a checkerboard grid of north-south and east-west boulevards.

Within Palm Springs, Highway 111 becomes Palm Canyon Drive. This 2-mi-/3-km-long main drag is lined with the principal shops, restaurants, hotels and bars. Immediately west of Palm Canyon, the upscale residential districts (north to south) of Las Palmas, the Tennis Club District and Little Tuscany comprise a warren of little-trafficked streets lined with upscale homes of the rich and famous.

History

The Palm Springs region was first settled about 2,000 years ago by Native American communities who made good use of the natural hot springs at the base of the San Jacinto Mountains. When prospectors arrived in the mid-19th century, they found a highly evolved society—the Agua Caliente (Hot Water) Band of Cahuilla Indians.

In 1876, the U.S. government deeded 32,000 acres/12,950 hectares in trust to the Cahuillas, and an equal amount to the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, which put a track through the land in 1877. Soon enough, visitors began arriving for the curative powers of the thermal springs. In 1884, settler "Judge" John Guthrie McCallum built the first permanent homestead, general store and a sophisticated aqueduct. By 1886, the first hotel was built.

In the 1920s, the arrival of stars and starlets launched Palm Springs from a sleepy desert outpost into a hedonistic retreat. The town boomed because of a studio rule that dictated movie stars under contract had to stay within a two hour drive of their respective lots. Movie directors used the area as a backdrop for their films, such as The Sheik (1921) and The Foreign Legion (1928). Ranch hotels opened, drawing regular habitues. Walt Disney, Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, Errol Flynn and Clark Gable were among the first famous fixtures alongside Hollywood moguls. Ensuing decades saw the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, and Elvis.

During World War II, the desert became a training ground for General George S. Patton's troops before they were sent to North Africa. The El Mirador Hotel treated wounded U.S. soldiers as the Torney General Hospital. The airfield eventually became Palm Springs Regional Airport. It was the first major land purchase from the Native Americans following the 1959 Equalization Law.

By the 1950s and '60s, Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack had made Palm Springs the definition of cool. Almost every Hollywood star of the era put down roots in Palm Springs. They were accompanied by world-famous architects—among them Albert Frey, John Lautner, Richard Neutra and E. Stewart Williams—who blessed the city with thousands of buildings in an informal and trendy vernacular desert-modernist style. Meanwhile, the post war arrival of air-conditioning gave the desert city a magnificent boost in year-round tourism and full-time residency. Hotels were soon being built by the dozens.

The heyday lasted into the 1970s, by which time the money had moved down-valley to newer cities graced by ritzy, golf-oriented country clubs. Palm Springs began a two-decade-long decline and fell into a state of decay. The city developed a seedy image, worsened by its sudden popularity as the West Coast spring-break party town. In 1988, songwriter Sonny Bono was elected mayor and managed to tone down spring-break fever. He also established the Palm Springs Film Festival. Meanwhile, the Agua Caliente tribe opened its first casino.

Fortunately, the city's stock of modernist homes helped turn things around. By the mid-1990s, gay fashionistas began arriving to renovate run-down homes, many of which metamorphosed into stylish boutique-hotels furnished with retro Eames, Noguchi and Saarinen kitsch. Palm Springs has since staged an impressive comeback, hosting popular art and music festivals. New hotels continue to open. Palm Springs is now acclaimed for fine dining, midcentury modern architecture and an impressive number of retro furniture boutiques. And Hollywood stars again flock to sip martinis poolside at fashionable resorts that evoke the 1960s.

Potpourri

Elvis Presley and Priscilla planned a secret wedding at Elvis' leased home at 1350 Ladera Circle, but word got out. To escape the paparazzi, they hopped the back fence, where Frank Sinatra's limo was waiting to whisk them to the airport and an escape to Las Vegas on Sinatra's private jet.

Temperatures regularly reach 120 F/49 C in summer, but you can hop the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, which deposits you at 8,516 ft/2,640 m, where it's usually 30 F/17 C cooler.

When The Lodge at Rancho Mirage was built, no fences were permitted so as not to interfere with migratory pathways of endangered bighorn sheep. An exception was granted after the sheep took to using the hotel's swimming pool.

In 1943, Errol Flynn opened a nudist colony in Palm Springs but kept his name off the books for tax reasons. The site is still a nudist resort.

Frank Sinatra's modernist three-bedroom home—Twin Palms—sold in 1997 for the modest price of US$187,000. It was resold in 2005 for US$2.9 million.

Opened in 1927 on North Canyon Drive, El Mirador was one of the first fancy resorts in Palm Springs. Guests such as Albert Einstein, Shirley Temple and H.G. Wells paid the princely rate of US$26 a day, which included three meals and a luxe room in the pink Byzantine palace.