Visiting Palm Springs

Visiting Palm Springs

We went to California over the weekend to celebrate our friend PJ’s surprise 30th birthday party in Huntington Beach. After a super fun weekend filled with ice skating, bowling (I actually won a game!), and tons of homemade poutine(!), Andy and I rented a car and drove a couple of hours east to Palm Springs. I’ve been anxious to go to Palm Springs ever since I wrote this post two years ago about the colorful Saguaro hotel, and I am sooooo glad we finally went. We have a TON of photos to share with you, so get comfy!

Our room at The Saguaro was PINK! Yes! Baby pink furniture, hot pink curtains, purple carpet, orange and white walls — it was so perfect for me. I wish I got more/better pictures. The pool view from our balcony was also amazing, with all the colors, each of which represents a flower native to the desert. We really enjoyed renting bikes from the hotel (free), and the on-site restaurant El Jefe had great tacos that were as colorful as the hotel itself.

I thought Palm Springs was just going to be pools, margaritas and vintage shopping. And yes, there was plenty of that. But I had no idea that the desert and surrounding mountains would be so breathtakingly beautiful, or that we’d end up falling so madly in love with it.

Our favorite thing to do was drive — and bike — around looking at all the amazing midcentury modern architecture that Palm Springs is so famous for. We bought a self-guided tour map at the visitor’s center for $5 that listed homes designed by famous architects, and where Hollywood celebrities lived and played in the 1950s and ’60s. (There’s an app, too, which we didn’t buy because our phone batteries were dying at the time, but I wish we would have). A lot of the houses are hiding behind privacy fences, which is kind of sad, though understandable, but we still saw tons of incredible houses that inspired us like crazy. Midcentury is our favorite era of design, and the Palm Springs “Desert Modern” style is the best of the best. I felt like a creep taking pictures of people’s homes, but I couldn’t help it! Here’s a few of our favorites. The top one is where Elvis and Priscilla honeymooned!

Another must-do that we loved was the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. First you drive up, up, up through some gorgeous natural landscape to the tram station, then take the world’s largest rotating tramcar for 10 minutes to the top of the mountain. At 8,500 feet up, you can see Palm Springs looking like a little dot in the distance at the base of the mountains, and the Coachella Valley spread before you. It’s incredible and photos don’t do it any justice.

Some of our other favorite things in Palm Springs: the private balconies at Matchbox, flights of bacon at Cheeky’s, drinks at Bar, vintage furniture window shopping along N. Palm Canyon Drive, lunch and the photobooth at King’s Highway/Ace Hotel.

Sometimes I come back from a trip feeling happy to be home, but this time I just really, really wish we could have stayed! I guess that means we’ll just have to go back soon…

— Kerry

P.S. You have to watch this.