Palm Desert

There are no beaches in Palm Desert. The town sits in a desert valley, and the nearest Pacific beaches in Orange County are about two hours' drive over the mountains. The Salton Sea, about an hour south-east, is a salty, shrinking lake and nobody swims in it.

Water here means the swimming pool. Almost every resort, hotel and rental has one, often heated in winter, and lounging beside a pool under the palms is a big part of a stay. Anyone who wants sand and surf has to plan a full day out to the coast.

Eating out in Palm Desert means resort dining. The steakhouses, Californian bistros and patio restaurants along El Paseo and in the big resorts are polished and dependable, and they suit a long dinner outdoors on a warm winter evening. Few of them are distinctive, and the menus repeat from one to the next.

The local character shows up at the eastern end of the valley. Indio and Coachella have family-run Mexican taquerias and bakeries, and the date groves around them sell date shakes and Medjool dates, the one true regional speciality. Visitors who want more variety drive twenty minutes to Palm Springs.

Palm Desert is a resort town built after the Second World War, so it has little history to show. The Palm Springs Art Museum keeps a branch here with an outdoor sculpture garden, and the town has scattered public art and a few commercial galleries along El Paseo.

Most of the valley's cultural interest lies twenty minutes west in Palm Springs, with its mid-century modern houses and the main art museum. For a visitor based in Palm Desert, sightseeing fills a morning or two. People come for the climate and the setting, not for monuments.

Evenings in Palm Desert are quiet. There are wine bars, cocktail lounges and happy hours on restaurant patios around El Paseo, and on winter nights they are pleasant but they close early. Much of the crowd is retirees and golfers.

For a later night, visitors drive to the large tribal casinos in the valley, which have bars and lounges open into the small hours, or to Palm Springs, whose downtown has the area's liveliest bars, including a well-known gay scene. Nobody books Palm Desert for going out.

The landscape is the real draw. The Santa Rosa Mountains rise straight from the edge of town, and steep trails climb into them from the south side of Palm Desert, with wide views over the valley floor. Nearby, the Indian Canyons hide fan-palm oases with streams in winter. In Palm Springs, the aerial tramway climbs to about 2,600m, where pine forest gives cooler hiking, and snow in winter.

Joshua Tree National Park is about an hour away, with granite boulders for climbing and huge night skies. Golf courses fill the valley. The good season runs from October to May. In summer, daytime highs above 40°C confine any outdoor activity to the hours around dawn.

Palm Springs is the obvious first outing, twenty minutes west, for its mid-century modern neighbourhoods, its walkable downtown and its vintage shops. Further afield, Temecula wine country is about an hour and a half away, with tasting rooms among rolling hills. The mountain village of Idyllwild makes a cool escape in summer, and Pioneertown, near Joshua Tree, is an old Western film set.

To the south-east, Salvation Mountain, the painted folk-art hillside near the Salton Sea, makes an odd and memorable day. Los Angeles and San Diego are at the edge of a day trip and better treated as separate stays.

The Living Desert is the main event for children. It is a large zoo and botanical garden in Palm Desert itself, with giraffes, cheetahs and other desert animals from around the world, and it is easily worth a full morning. The aerial tramway in Palm Springs is a hit with older children, and the big resorts, with their pools, slides and lawns, keep a family busy between outings.

The town is safe, spacious and relaxed. Otherwise, the valley is built around golf and adults, so there is little else aimed at children. Every outing means a drive, and summer heat makes midday outdoors unwise for small children.

Plan on a car. Palm Desert is a low-density spread of resorts, gated communities and shopping centres along wide boulevards, and the rest of the valley stretches for miles in both directions. Local buses exist but are slow and infrequent, and few visitors use them.

El Paseo is pleasant to stroll for a few blocks, but that is about the only part of town made for walking. The upside is that roads are uncongested and parking is easy almost everywhere. Ride-hailing fills the gaps for evenings out.

El Paseo is the town's shopping street. It is a palm-lined boulevard of upscale fashion boutiques, jewellers and art galleries, set among landscaped medians and sculptures. Its shops serve a wealthy winter crowd, and browsing here is as much a social outing as a shopping trip. A large indoor mall nearby covers the familiar American chains.

About half an hour west on the highway, a large designer outlet centre draws bargain hunters from across Southern California. Palm Springs adds vintage and mid-century furniture shops. There are no real markets or local crafts, apart from date farms and a weekly street fair.

Palm Desert costs what you would expect of an American resort town. In the winter and spring high season, resort rooms are expensive, especially around big valley events. Restaurant meals carry US prices plus tips, and a hire car adds a steady daily cost.

The valley has a clear seasonal pattern. From June to September, when the heat empties the town, resort rooms drop to a fraction of their winter rates. Chain hotels and vacation rentals offer cheaper stays all year. Golf and spa treatments are where budgets stretch fastest.

The McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert is the valley's main stage. Through the winter season it hosts touring Broadway shows, ballet, orchestras, comedians and well-known singers, and it is well run and comfortable. The large tribal casinos and an arena in the north of the valley add big-name concerts through the year.

Every spring, the polo grounds in nearby Indio host the Coachella festival, followed by the Stagecoach country music festival. Both are famous, but they run for only a few weekends and tickets and rooms go fast. Outside the season, and away from the festivals, there is no local theatre, opera or jazz scene to speak of.

Slowing down is what the Coachella Valley was built for. Palm Desert and its neighbours are lined with resort spas offering massages, treatments and long afternoons by the pool under the palms, and the whole town keeps the unhurried pace of a winter retreat. Golf, late breakfasts and early nights set the rhythm.

The real bathing culture is across the valley in Desert Hot Springs, about half an hour north. There, small spa hotels sit on natural hot mineral springs and fill their pools straight from them, a tradition going back to the town's early twentieth-century founding. The dry, sunny winters are themselves a reason many people come to unwind.