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Greater Palm Springs
Watching those athletes running around the field endlessly might give you sympathy pains; luckily you can easily pamper yourself. Drive two hours east of Los Angeles and you’ll come to a nine-city oasis rising like a mirage in the desert. Your eyes aren’t deceiving you—you’ve arrived in Greater Palm Springs. With more than 300 days of sunshine per year, this paradise wraps some of life’s most decadent pleasures into one spot. Culinary goodness? Check. Arts and culture? Check. Wellness? Check. Pool time? Check.
Celebs flocked here during Hollywood’s heyday and it’s easy to see why. A few short days here can easily pack in some of the area’s greatest hits, but, warning: you might find it hard to return to reality afterward. Read our 3-day guide to experiencing the highlights of Greater Palm Springs.
Start your day in Indio with breakfast at Shields Date Garden, set on 17 acres of date groves overlooking the Santa Rosa Mountains. Here, you can sit at the original 1960s counter inside the shop and order their signature date shake. Or, you can eat at The Café, which serves omelets, pancakes and breakfast burritos.
Explore local public art in downtown Indio, like some of the former Coachella art installations as well as the hanging umbrellas of Happy Alley. Various mural projects, known as the Coachella Walls, can also be seen in the namesake city. Alternatively, drive through Joshua Tree National Park with the AC blasting. It takes about 2–3 hours to do a loop.
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Happy Alley
Palm Springs Art Museum
Day one
Day two
Day three
Coachella Walls, Indio
Joshua Tree National Park
Plan your trip
Thompson Palm Springs, by Hyatt
Two Bunch Palms
Mole Mexican Kitchen
Yoga on the lawn at The Ritz-Carlton, Rancho Mirage
Massage at La Quinta Resort & Club
PS Underground
Palm Springs Surf Club
Golf at Grand Hyatt Indian Wells Resort & Villas
Agua Caliente Cultural Museum
Tia Carmen
Greater Palm Springs is an oasis of wellness and encourages you to nourish your spirit. Pamper yourself with a spa treatment at a local hotel. Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort & Spa in Indian Wells offers outdoor soaking pools, massages, facials and body polishes at Spa Rosa. La Quinta Resort & Club in La Quinta has treatments like stretch therapy for the body, plus massages, facials as well as hair and nail services at Spa La Quinta.
You could easily spend an entire getaway pool-hopping through the Coachella Valley—or in the case of family travelers, waterpark-hopping, so at the very least, spend the rest of the afternoon poolside. If you’re not staying at a hotel or a vacation rental with a pool, you can grab a day pass for a local resort.
Evening
Classic Club, Palm Desert
MCM house in Palm Springs
Renaissance Esmeralda Resort & Spa, Indian Wells
Morning
Afternoon
For a true culinary adventure, head to PS Underground in Palm Springs. While the venue is a given, the menu and entertainment are a secret until you are seated at your table. (Dietary restrictions are accommodated, just mention them when making a reservation.) As you eat, professional actors, musicians and storytellers interact with the audience and present live theater. Expect dramatic lighting, live music, fabulous costumes, seasonal food and plot twists.
Forget Starbucks. Greater Palm Springs has tons of local coffee shops, and you can grab something to eat here too. Choices include Cafecito Calaveras Burrito & Coffee House in Cathedral City, Desert Kid Coffee in Palm Desert, IW Coffee in Indian Wells or Koffi in Rancho Mirage.
It’s time to enjoy the local architecture, which is considered a Modernist oasis of mid-century design. Fans flock to places like the Kaufmann House and the Elvis Honeymoon Hideaway, where the King and Priscilla ensconced themselves in the late '60s. Whether you want to see historic homes or current celebrity ones, you can take a self-driving audio tour with Modern Tours Palm Springs. You can also explore the Palm Springs Art Museum, which has ever-changing exhibits and an Architecture and Design Center too.
Morning
With yummy options like roasted pear salad (pear, spinach, bleu cheese, dried cranberries and pinenuts), classic eggs benedict as well as a brie sandwich (Asian pear, brie, date jam, arugula and hazelnuts), it’s easy to see why Farm has been a longstanding favorite in Palm Springs since it opened a decade ago. The seasonal menu uses fresh, local ingredients.
After eating, head over to Palm Springs Surf Club, a literal oasis in the desert thanks to its state-of-the-art wave pool. Novices can rent a board from the in-house shop, while more advanced surfers can bring their own boards to ride engineered waves of different heights. And if you’re not up for surfing, you can still enjoy the pools, waterslides and lazy rivers.
Afternoon
Pair desert skies (i.e. few rainy, cloudy days) with local lighting restrictions that limit light pollution and you have a recipe for fantastic stargazing with the naked eye or binoculars. Most Thursdays and Saturdays throughout the year, the Rancho Mirage Library and Observatory holds Public Exploration Nights, free of charge to all residents and visitors, to look at magnified views of planets, star clusters and more. There’s also a monthly program to “swoon @ the moon” using four telescopes. Check the event calendar to see what’s available while you’re in town.
While celestial viewing is grand, sometimes a bird’s-eye view does the trick too. The Edge Steakhouse at the The Ritz-Carlton, Rancho Mirage is set on a cliff and has floor-to-ceiling windows so you can look at the valley below. As the name implies, dry aged steaks are on offer, but so is seafood, gluten-free options and even a vegan miso glazed mushroom steak.
Evening
Grab breakfast at Wilma & Frieda’s Café in Palm Desert, where you’ll have to decide among its “eeny, meany, miney, mo” egg plates, which progressively add more items. Sweeter choices like churro waffles and blackberry custard French toast are also available. If you didn’t have enough steak the night before, there’s also the 6-ounce filet mignon served with two farm fresh eggs.
Burn off breakfast playing a round of golf at one of the many courses in the area, like 18-hole Mission Lakes Country Club, the two 18-hole courses at Cimarron Golf Resort in Cathedral City or the two 18-hole courses at Indian Canyons Golf Resort in Palm Springs. Alternatively, take a guided golf cart tour of the famous windmills, part of the San Gorgonio Pass wind farm that provides renewable energy to Greater Palm Springs.
Morning
Head on over to Delicias in Desert Hot Springs for some Mexico-City-inspired cuisine. The owners celebrate their Mexican roots with a packed menu that serves everything from enchiladas and fajitas to tamales and street food.
Spend the afternoon soaking up some history at the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum before soaking your bones. (The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians are the indigenous tribe of the Palm Springs area.) The facility is divided into five exhibition areas, including the 8,000-year-old artifacts uncovered during excavations for the plaza that hosts both the museum and The Spa at Séc-he. Cahuilla for “the sound of boiling water,” the spa offers 22 private spring-fed mineral baths, 15 treatment rooms, two couples’ treatment suites, a cryotherapy chamber, a menthol dry sauna, a eucalyptus steam room, two halotherapy salt caves, a tranquility garden as well as a complex of outdoor pools.
Afternoon
Properly relaxed after a spa treatment (or two or three…), it’s time to reward your belly with one last dinner in Greater Palm Springs. Head for an upscale Southwest dining experience by renowned chef Angelo Sosa at Tia Carmen, found inside Grand Hyatt Indian Wells Resort & Villas. Dine on the patio or enjoy the desert views from inside at Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort‘s Grapefruit Basil, which even has its own signature cocktail (Grey Goose, fresh basil and ruby red grapefruit).
For another chic vibe, head to Porta Via in Palm Desert. This neighborhood California bistro and bar features sushi, pastas, chilled seafood, steaks and chops. Wherever you choose to dine in Greater Palm Springs, your tastebuds will feel just as pampered as the rest of your body.
Evening
JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa
Pool at Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort & Spa
Porta Via
Grand Hyatt Indian Wells Resort & Villas
Farm
The Edge Steakhouse
Rancho Mirage Library and Observatory
The Spa at Séc-he
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