Palm Springs Travel Guide – TRAVEL IN STYLE

This is not a typical travel guide because my time in Palm Springs was anything but typical. Although my trip to the desert was short, the penultimate stop on a cross-country road trip across the Southwest, Palm Springs left a lingering impression on me. One that I’m still trying to sort through myself.

The suffocating 122-degree temps, the palm tree-lined streets, the decaying elegance of the 1950s everywhere you look, the posh golf courses and garden parties, the Instagram-worthy festival scene, the miles upon miles of Joshua Trees and windmills leading to nowhere, the mid-century modern charm paired with secondhand decadence and retro glamour glowing dimly through the windows of the diners, like copper painted to be golden but rusting now after years of neglect as the truth comes out—all of it clashed but somehow made sense in this desert oasis from a bygone era. Nowhere on Earth I’ve ever been has emulated that sultry combination of the most discordant elements quite like Palm Springs.

To be perfectly frank with you, Palm Springs was in actuality everything I wasn’t expecting. Before I even set foot in the desert, I’d seen enough Instagrammable door shots, heatwave-inspired pool parties and Coachella looks to last a lifetime. But the place I drove into one scorching summer night was nothing like the pictures showed.

Maybe it was the nightmarishly oppressive heat and humidity that clung to the air every time I dared to venture outside. Maybe it was the feeling that I had stepped back into a place as it existed seventy years ago. Maybe it was the decaying glamour of a town that had become a mausoleum of its former self, it’s personality too affected by the rise of Coachella and fleeting fame. Maybe it was the fact that even though it was 122 degrees outside during a global pandemic, there were still people brave enough to pack the patios of every elegant brunch spot on Palm Canyon Drive. Although it wasn’t anything like I thought it would be, I left Palm Springs wanting more.

I still quite haven’t been able to pinpoint whether I loved or hated that little hamlet in the desert in my short 24-hour stint there. The sun setting in Joshua Tree left me in awe, but something about Palm Springs itself never quite sat right with me. At the end of the day, I think the natural side of the desert will always be the most compelling, with its unforgiving heat and resiliency. But I firmly believe that Palm Springs is worth the trip, if solely because I have never experienced any place quite like it. If you find yourself hitting the road from LA to the desert, these are the Palm Springs places you must see for yourself: