United States · luxury
Luxury Travel in Palm Springs — Trip Planner
Planning this trip in Palm Springs? Here’s how to decide what’s worth your time. The high-end side of Palm Springs — private guides, VIP access and premium experiences worth the splurge, all bookable in advance.
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Top experiences in Palm Springs
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What things cost in Palm Springs
The tramway costs around thirty-five dollars return for adults, the single biggest fixed expense of a visit. Art Museum admission is in the mid-teens with a free window on Thursday evenings. Indian Canyons entry runs around fifteen. Hotel rates invert with the season: cheap in August, tripled in February and March, plus a resort fee that is rarely optional.
Palm Springs after dark
Arenas Road, a single block behind Palm Canyon Drive, holds one of the densest concentrations of gay bars in the western United States, and it sets the tone of the town's evenings. Bootlegger Tiki and Melvyn's at the Ingleside cover the cocktail and old-Hollywood ends. Thursday nights, Palm Canyon closes to traffic for VillageFest. In summer the whole thing starts after nine because it is still a hundred degrees.
What to eat in Palm Springs
The date shake is the genuinely local drink, because the Coachella Valley grows nearly the whole American date crop; Shields Date Garden out in Indio has sold them since the 1920s beside a film about date pollination. Grapefruit and Medjool dates fill the winter farm stands. Las Casuelas Terraza on Palm Canyon has run the same Mexican menu for decades.
Palm Springs with kids, realistically
Children improve the tram rather than endure it, provided you pack jackets for the summit. The Living Desert in Palm Desert combines a zoo with a botanical garden and a giraffe feeding, and the Children's Discovery Museum sits in Rancho Mirage. From June through September, plan nothing outdoors between ten and five; heat here injures small children quickly.
When the weather turns in Palm Springs
Rain is close to irrelevant, at under six inches a year. The equivalent problem is heat, and the indoor day it forces is the same list: the Art Museum on a Thursday, the Air Museum's hangars, the Cultural Plaza, El Paseo's shops in Palm Desert, and the casino floors, which are the only genuinely cold buildings in town at four in the afternoon.