Palm Springs, Coachella, Joshua Tree, etc
This SoCal road trip is for anyone who lives for the aesthetic. If you fully romanticize desert living and want to sleep in a trendy geodesic dome or lounge by the pool of a mid-century modern time capsule, this one’s for you. ALSO for anyone heading to Coachella who wants to take advantage of the trip.
We’re going 200 feet below sea level (yup!) to a palm tree oasis, ~multiple~ art and architecture meccas, a US national park, and that weird hobo camp in the movie ‘Into the Wild’ also known for a famous Ke$ha revenge video.
Because, surprise, they’re all next to each other.
At the bottom of this page is a sample itinerary to help you piece all these unique places into a week-long road trip.
We try to Include costs where relevant | “Parks Pass” refers to the National Parks Access PasS
An “America the Beautiful” NP pass costs $80 per year and is valid for everyone in the vehicle
Getting to Your SoCal Road Trip
*Note: This is a fall/winter/spring trip because summer is way too hot*
If you’re not from these parts, you’ll probably fly into Los Angeles (LAX) or San Diego (SAN) and rent a car. There’s also a small airport in Palm Springs if that’s how you roll.
You can also do this loop in a rented campervan. We try to note camping suggestions in this road trip itinerary, but also check out our page on Essential Road Trip Apps. If you like off-roading, Borrego Springs has a lot of 4×4 roads, so rent accordingly.
If you’re already road tripping or vanlifing you can tack this road trip right onto the end of our Highway 395 scenic drive.
Los Angeles
Zero percent chance I’m going to try to list out all the awesome things LA and SD have to offer but yes, you should absolutely spend a day or 10 exploring these great cities. National Park bucket listers should be aware that both Pinnacles and Channel Islands are within day trip distance from LA.
A couple of our favorites in Los Angeles:
- The Getty – art musuem (do the architecture tour)free & Free
- Smorgasburg LA – street food festival on SUNDAYSfree entry
- LACMA – modern art museum $25 per person
- The Broad – and another modern art museumFree
No advice on where to vanlife in LA… My suggestion: stay with a friend?
Palm Springs
Palm Springs is a retro Hollywood midmod playground complete with gigantic Marilyn Monroe statue. It’s the perfect place to kick off our SoCal road trip with some R&R and fancy cocktails.
For accommodations, pick a desert modern hotel with atomic accents and a lazy river because this will be your haven during sunny hot afternoons. I’ve never been here, but The Saguaro looks super fun.
Palm Springs is also famous for its incredible vintage theme hotels like the iconic Trixie Motel. If you want something to yourself, opt for a private mid-century modern home with flawless desert landscaping.
If you’re into architecture, find the midmod gas station turned visitor center north of town. They’ll give you info on a self-guided desert modernism tour. If you want to get inside some of these famous homes, try to plan this trip in mid-February to overlap with Modernism Week. Self Guided Tour: Free
If you’re here for the food & drink, find the savory crepe place in the alley south of town. Eat a smash burger at Heyday and wash it down with a date shake from Great Shakes. Go to a different Tiki bar each night.
The Palm Springs Art Museum has a great little collection. We’ve been twice and have really enjoyed the rotating galleries. We’ve only been to the Palm Springs Architecture Museum once, but it’s a nice small gallery. $16 Per Person | Thurs PM Free
Pro tip: Try to be here on a Thursday for Village Fest when the main street transforms into an art and street food festival and the museums are free after 5pm.
FYI There’s very little freecamping in Palm Springs – iOverlander for spots nearby.
Joshua Tree National Park
If you’re cool you call it JTree, FYI. Joshua Tree National Park is popular with outdoorsy Angelenos who come for bouldering and watching sunsets in the desert. But obviously we’re here for the freaky looking trees and the fancy airbnbs.
*Note: Joshua Tree is the name of the park AND the town outside of the park*
You can get a good feel for the national park in one day of exploring. The best hike imo is Forty Nine Palms Oasis accessed from outside the park. But Split Rock (inside the park) was cool too. JTREE: $30 per vehicle | Parks Pass Valid
Not many national parks have first come first served campgrounds, but Joshua Tree has three! These are Hidden Valley, White Tank and Belle campgrounds. Hidden Valley has the most campsites. Check-out is at noon, so our suggestion is to start looking for your site around 11am for the best chance at success.$15 per site per night
Joshua Tree, Yucca Valley and Twentynine Palms are all cute, trendy towns with good food, cute shops and sprinkled with very cool vacation rentals. The Rib Co has pretty good bbq. We really like Crossroads Cafe for breakfast/brunch.
There are murals and little art installations all over the town into the outskirts so make sure to leave some time for aimless wandering. For example The World Famous Crochet Museum.
Accommodations range from retro airstreams to glamping to several thou per night desert bungalows with clear domed ceilings. Try to find something with an outdoor tub made from a metal barrel.
You can freecamp on BLM land both north and south of JTNP.
Coachella
Coachella (the town) is south of Palm Springs and north of Salton Sea. If Coachella (the festival) is happening, go to Coachella. Or avoid the entire area like the plague. Those are the only two options during Coachella (mid-April).
The massive man-made body of water filling the valley south of Coachella is called Salton Sea and it’s over 200 feet below sea level. This blows my mind a little. Salton sea exists to irrigate crops so don’t really think of it as a sea. You do not want to swim here at all really.
SoCal Road Trip Weird Side Trek
From here, things start to get a little wild, y’all.
On the East side of Salton Sea, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, are two strange and wonderful communities: Slab City and Bombay Beach.
*Please remember to be respectful of the land and people in these residential communities!*
Slab City
Slab City is basically a nomad camp on public land with no rules and amazing outsider art installations. Everyone here lives off grid. The residents of Slab City call it “the last free place”, which I assume refers to the fact that it’s free to stay but also unencumbered by things like building codes and safety regulations.
There’s a free library, an outdoor concert venue, a bar/cafe and a couple RV parks. You’ll definitely want to check out Salvation Mountain and East Jesus.
Slab City has shown up a few times in pop culture. Christopher McCandless, the protagonist of ‘Into the Wild,’ visits Slab City in both the book and movie adaptation. You might also recognize scenes from Kesha’s “Praying” music video.
If you want to read more about the history, people and culture of Slab City, I absolutely devoured this article. It also has more info on the larger-than-life characters behind Salvation Mountain and East Jesus.
The good news is that you can sleep in your campervan for free here.
Salvation Mountain
Salvation Mountain is one of the major art installations within Slab City. It’s a colorfully painted, man-made “mountain” with religious overtones. It’s a spectacular piece of American Folk Art. Please be respectful while visiting as restoration is in progress. Donations Accepted
East Jesus
Further into Slab City is the neighborhood of East Jesus. Most of East Jesus is one guy’s estate and the colossal amount of assemblage and welded junkyard art he left behind. It feels like a botanical garden of upcycled sculpture. Donations Accepted
If you’re planning to stop at Slab City on your version of this SoCal road trip, I would set aside a couple of hours to experience this strange world.
Bombay Beach
Just north of Slab City, Bombay Beach is not really a beach so much as a completely unhinged town/art installation that looks like everyone comes here to drop off their artwork after Burning Man. Between two visits, 6 months apart, we saw many changes in the scenery.
The first time we visited we were unclear on whether people lived here. On our second visit we saw locals out and about. There are normal houses and properties in town, but there’s also an abandoned shipping container masquerading as a museum and a completely ransacked and thoroughly graffitied housing development behind an ornate gate announcing “Bombay Beach Estates.”
There’s a bar and a cafe (seems normal…) and a place called The Institute of Particle Physics, Metaphysics & International Relations (what?). There’s an egg on someone’s house. There’s an airplane – a real airplane – with the wings of a steampunk eagle.
Even though the town is perched on the edge of Salton Sea, a huge sand berm surrounds the town completely blocking any view of the water. Out on the beach large and, in some cases, really expensive sculptures dot the apocalyptic landscape like carcasses.
Pretty sure you could set up camp right on the beach here and no one would care
Anza-Borrego Desert & Borrego Springs
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is California’s largest state park and a dark sky park. This desert landscape is celebrated for its impressive cactus blooms, slot canyons, seemingly endless badlands and extensive off-roading opportunities.$10 per vehicle per day
For ATV enthusiasts, Ocotillo Wells is a designated area outside of the park with a ton more 4×4 canyon drives and freecamping for van folks.
At the very center of Anza-Borrego State Park is the town of Borrego Springs, another surprising cultural oasis in the SoCal desert. There’s an art museum, an outdoor art park, a beautiful library and a farmers market on fridays that includes local makers.
But the one thing you cannot miss are the giant metal beasts of Galleta Meadows. Make sure to go to the visitor center in town where they can give you a map of the 130+ life-sized sculptures sprinkled throughout the desert around town. Free
There’s infinity freecamping near Borrego Springs, including near the dinos
Julian
There’s a pie town in California.
Julian is a quaint mountain town as you head west from Borrego Springs towards San Diego. It was originally a mining town, but at some point they realized the climate was good for growing apples. Orchards were planted.
Soon they found themselves with a surplus of apples so they started using the extra apples to make apple pie. And now Julian is famous for pie. (But now they make so much pie they have to buy apples from Washington state, too.)
The town is cute with a brewery and a bunch of fun shops. Turns out to be the perfect last stop on our SoCal Road Trip!
SoCal Road Trip Sample Itinerary
You can do a lot in a week in you have a plan. Here’s a suggested itinerary for how to tackle our SoCal road trip. If you have more or less time, adjust as necessary!
- Day 1: LOS ANGELES – Fly in, get your rental car and spend the day exploring your small corner of Los Angeles.
- Day 2: PALM SPRINGS – Drive over to Palm Springs, settle into your hotel, orient yourself with a trip downtown for dinner. Get drinks at one of the many tiki bars.
- Day 3: PALM SPRINGS – Head to the PS visitor center, explore the mid-century modern architectural neighborhoods, head to the Art Museum in the afternoon. Don’t forget a date shake.
- Day 4: JOSHUA TREE – Drive over to Joshua Tree, stopping in Yucca Valley for vintage shops. Check out the funky art scene (like the World Famous Crochet Museum) in Joshua Tree and Twentynine Palms. Consider hiking Forty Nine Palms Oasis before sunset when the temps get cooler.
- Day 5: JOSHUA TREE – Explore inside JTree NP, including Skull Rock, etc. Scramble up a boulder field to catch sunset.
- Day 6: SALTON SEA/ANZA BORREGO – From the park, exit south and head down along the east bank of Salton Sea to Bombay Beach, and on to Slab City. After exploring, continue towards Borrego Springs. Check out Galleta Meadows and look for wildflowers in Anza-Borrego State Park.
- Day 7: TO THE COAST – Up and over the mountains on your way back to the coast, swing through Julian for pie and head to the airport.
SoCal Road Trip End
That’s all.
This post is dedicated to my friend who flew all the way to Palm Springs for her birthday and then got sad when I asked if she saw the giant dinosaur sculptures because she didn’t know they were nearby.
I hope I can save others the heartbreak 💔