10 More Fun Things To Do In Palm Springs

10 More Fun Things To Do In Palm Springs

We’ve already published a list of our 10 favorite things to do in Palm Springs (10 Palm Springs Favorites), but as soon as we finished that post we realized that we needed to tell you about a few more fun things to do in the Coachella Valley; hence, this post.

As we said before, when we talk about “Palm Springs” we are actually talking about the Palm Springs area, including the Coachella Valley communities of Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Desert Hot Springs, Coachella, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, La Quinta and Indio. Like us, many people say they are vacationing in Palm Springs, when in fact they are visiting one or more of the listed cities.

We are a long way from being experts about Palm Springs, but we’ve been visiting there every year for over 20 years so we do have a few ideas about what is fun in the valley. So, here’s our next ten fun things to do there!

Joshua Tree National Park

Although strictly speaking, Joshua Tree isn’t in the valley but it still is a primary attraction for visitors. The north entrance to the park is just an hour northeast of downtown Palm Springs. Here you will enter the Mojave Desert portion of the park and you’ll see the park’s namesake Joshua Trees.

Joshua Trees only grow only in the Mojave Desert and they actually are more closely related to grasses and agaves than to other trees. They grow up to 50 feet tall and can live for hundreds if not thousands of years.  (Dating Joshua Trees is very difficult as they don’t have rings to show their age.) They have clusters of bayonet-shaped leaves and they have bloom pods of about 24 inches. I think they are strikingly beautiful and I love them most of all during their blooming season from February to April.

You can drive completely through Joshua Tree in about two hours. But we like to take our time; stopping to hike trails or just to watch the amazing climbers going straight up on many of the park’s massive rocks. One of our favorite hiking trails is the Hidden Valley trail. This fairly short trail provides lots of desert scenery in this rocky valley once used by rustlers to hide their stolen cattle.

The southern end of the drive brings you back into the Colorado/Sonoran desert. One of our favorite stops here is the Cholla Cactus Garden. Here are thousands of naturally growing chollas, also known as jumping chollas.  The branches of this cactus remind me of teddy bear arms, but beware! Get too close and it seems as though the sharp spikes almost jump into your skin! That’s a souvenir of Joshua Tree that you don’t need!

Just Relax

I don’t know why we didn’t include this in our first list of ten. Yes, there are lots of activities to do in the valley, but be sure to carve out some time just to “be” in the valley. Virtually, every hotel has a pool calling to you to sit in the sun with a cool drink. Or maybe you’d prefer to just sit in the shade and read a book while listening to the birds. Shade or sun, you’ll often be buzzed by one of the many species of hummingbirds that live and visit in the valley.

Parks and Gardens

There are a wide array of parks and gardens in the valley.  Our two favorites are The Civic Center Park in Palm Desert and the Moorten Botanical Garden in Palm Springs.

The Civic Center Park

This is a big beautiful park just off of Fred Waring Drive in Palm Desert. It has something for everyone including picnic tables with grills, tennis courts, ponds with lots of ducks and turtles and so much more! There is also an impressive Holocaust Memorial here. We love just strolling around this park enjoying the animals, the art and the peaceful setting.

Moorten Botanical Garden

This botanical garden may be little but it packs in over 3000 varieties of desert plants from all over the southwest. Moorten is tucked in on the south edge of Palm Springs and it is a great place to learn about desert plants while enjoying the hummingbirds and doves who love to visit here, too.

There is a $5 admission fee and in case you want your own cactus they have lots of plantings for sale.

Other Parks

We also enjoy the Cancer Survivor’s Park in Rancho Mirage. Yet another great place to visit is the Morongo Canyon Preserve about 30 minutes north of Palm Springs. Here you can walk a boardwalk into the oasis to enjoy the wildlife perhaps even catch a glimpse of a mountain lion!

Living Desert Zoo

Located just south of Palm Desert on Portola Avenue you will find the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens. This zoo has been rated as one of the top ten in the US by Conde Nast and that rating is well deserved. This zoo has lots of native animals as well as animals from afar such as cheetahs and giraffes. Not only that, there is a 5 1/2 mile hiking trail where you may encounter even more native animals.

Street Fair at College of the Desert

Every Saturday and Sunday throughout the year the College of the Deserts conducts its Street Fair and Farmers’ Market on their campus near the corner of Monterey Avenue and Magnesia Falls. Here you’ll find an incredible range of merchandise ranging from clothes to furniture to unique art and tasty food. We like to visit here to find a unique souvenir or that just-so item of desert art to take home.

Hot Air Balloon

Our hot air ballroom ride over the valley still stands out as one of my most memorable. Our ride started in the pre-dawn hours and it was thrilling to see the balloon slowly fill with hot air; making this a private balloon glow for us!

Our ride started in Palm Desert and we floated over the patchwork valley for about ten miles, finally landing in one of the desert squares outside of Indio. We then celebrated our landing with champagne and sweet muffins. This is a not-to-be-missed experience!

Palm Desert Air Museum

Located just east of the Palm Springs airport, the Palm Desert Air Museum is known as the museum that flies its exhibits. The museum houses about 60 planes in 4 hangers. The planes are from WWII and virtually every combat era since. Another big feature of this museum is that many of the museum’s docents actually flew these planes and served on the ships that carried them.

And, if you’re interested in actually flying in a vintage airplane this is the place for you! The museum conducts flights in their C-47 Skytrain and their P-51 Mustang. What an incredible way to experience history!

Geocaching

We love to geocache and we’ve found caches in all 50 states and in over 50 countries. That being said, our favorite place to geocache is the Coachella Valley. There are over 1500 geocaches in the valley and surrounding mountains. This means that you can do urban caching, desert caching, mountain caching or a variety of all. The valley has some of the most creative caches we’ve ever found and we always look forward to coming back and finding more. The wildlife, the terrain and the creativity make this geocaching heaven!

Day Trips

Yes, we love the valley and there is so much to do. But…sometimes we want to go outside the valley and check out more of California. Luckily, this is easy to since Palm Desert is blessed with great highway connections. San Diego is only two and half hours away and the vineyards of Temucula are only one and a half hours away.

It’s also just a two hour drive on I-10 to get to Los Angeles. There is so much to do there, but our day trips have been limited to horse races and family visits

Something We Don’t Do, but…

Golf

We don’t golf. We have nothing against golf, but we have never gotten into it. Perhaps it’s because Mona shot a 294 on her golf final in college, but regardless, we don’t golf. However, the Coachella Valley is said to have the highest concentration of golf courses in the world with over 120 courses spread through the valley. Golfing may be on the decline in other parts of the country, but it’s still king of Palm Springs!

Even though I don’t golf I have learned to appreciate some of the finer points of the sport. Our balcony overlooks a golf course and I’ve learned that the hole and the tees are moved every morning. I also learned that the best time of day to watch golf cart drivers is late afternoon. For some reason that’s when most of the funny accidents happen; including driving into the rough and accidentally driving into the water.

Ten Again!

That’s ten again. 10 more things to do in and around Palm Trees. I hope you enjoyed them and I hope you get a chance to visit this incredible valley soon!

References

None of the businesses discussed above are our sponsors. The same goes for all the cities and tourist agencies in the valley. We just love Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley!

Here’s an article about some of the best golf courses in the area.

This is the National Park Service’s website on Joshua Tree National Park.

Click on this link for more information about the Palm Springs Air Museum.

And, here’s a link to my favorite site for all things Palm Springs!