Coachella Valley, Palm Springs & Pioneertown

A 1,200-acre desert zoo and botanical garden in Palm Desert — 150 species of animals from the Sahara, Arabian Peninsula, and California desert, set in a native plant landscape that covers 9 different desert ecosystems. The best zoo in Southern California for understanding the desert environments within a few hours of LA, and one of the few zoos where the landscape itself is the exhibit.

Palm Desert's main commercial street — the 'Rodeo Drive of the Desert' is a mile-long promenade of galleries, boutiques, and outdoor sculpture installations, shaded by canopies and lined with mature date palms. The galleries are serious; the sculpture walk is free.

A Palm Springs culinary institution in a converted 1920s building — an open kitchen, wood-burning oven, and a menu built around seasonal California ingredients. The roasted vegetables and the housemade pastas are the reason this restaurant fills up.

A genuinely excellent museum in downtown Palm Springs with a permanent collection focused on California art, Native American art, and contemporary glass — the Loewen Gallery of Glass is outstanding. The building is a 1996 E. Stewart Williams design that fits the desert context precisely.

The most reserved table in Palm Springs — a small brunch and dinner restaurant on a palm-shaded patio that sources everything locally and changes the menu weekly. The bacon flight changes weekly too. Reservations essential.

The largest native California fan palm oasis in North America — 3,000 Washingtonia palms in a steep-walled canyon on the Agua Caliente tribal lands, their skirts of dead fronds creating a rustling sound in the morning breeze. The Palm Canyon trail follows the stream through the oasis for 15 miles; the first 2 miles show the oasis at its most spectacular.

A narrower side canyon of the Indian Canyons system where the creek runs between polished granite boulders under the palms. The spring comes from a fault-controlled groundwater discharge — the Agua Caliente people have lived in these canyons for thousands of years, and the pictographs on the canyon walls are still visible.

The Annenberg Estate opened its 200-acre grounds to the public — a Mid-Century Modern house designed by A. Quincy Jones in 1966, surrounded by a 9-acre garden of desert plants that replaced the original golf course. The centerpiece is the house itself, used for US-China summit meetings under five presidents. Free grounds entry; timed house tours by reservation.

An outdoor restaurant in a restored 1930s Cary Grant cottage on Palm Canyon Drive — California cuisine in a garden setting that captures the relaxed Palm Springs of Hollywood's golden age. The weekend brunch is exceptional.

A narrow slot canyon on Agua Caliente tribal lands where a 60-foot waterfall drops into a pool at the base of the San Jacinto escarpment — the guided 2-mile trail explains the Cahuilla creation story associated with the canyon. The geology of the fault scarp is dramatic: the mountain rises 9,000 feet above the valley floor in just a few miles.

The legendary all-day brunch restaurant at the Parker hotel — outrageous portions, a theatrical menu (the lobster scramble is famous), and a poolside atmosphere that summarizes the hedonistic Palm Springs weekend.

Built in 1947 as a permanent filming location by Roy Rogers and Gene Autry — an actual Western-era Main Street with a livery stable, jail, and general store that doubled as a real-functioning frontier town. The original saloon became Pappy & Harriet's Pioneertown Palace, now one of the best live music venues in California, booking everyone from Paul McCartney to local country bands on its outdoor stage.

A Mojave Desert honky-tonk in a 1947 Western set that has become one of the most beloved music venues in America — weekend shows book out months in advance, but the bar and kitchen open for lunch daily. The mesquite-grilled tri-tip and the margaritas are the appropriate order for the desert afternoon.

A 55-foot wooden dome built in 1954 by aircraft engineer George Van Tassel after an alleged encounter with a Venusian — the structural acoustics of the hand-joined wooden shell produce one of the most unusual sound environments on Earth. Sound baths are conducted most weekend mornings inside the dome using crystal singing bowls; the resonance in the cedar chamber is a genuinely peculiar experience regardless of one's position on the alien contact claim.

The landscape around the Integratron, near the abandoned Giant Rock Airport, gives a sense of the high Mojave desert's emptiness and strangeness — the boulders are enormous, the sky is wide, and the sense of being somewhere unlike anywhere else in California is strong. A 30-minute walk from the Integratron parking area.