Palm Springs

 

It is an ideal spot for Southern California residents interested in a weekend getaway or a place that feels like home especially because of its location which is approximately 110 miles southeast of Los Angeles and 140 miles northeast of San Diego. Palm Springs has an average of 350 days of sunshine and less than 5 inches of rainfall annually making it quite attractive for sun lovers who prefer a dry climate.

 

Palm Springs shares a unique western boundary with Coachella Valley. This makes it a centre of attraction to the 2.5 – 3.5 million tourists that visit the desert resort cities of Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, La Quinta, and Indio annually. While visiting Palm Springs, you have the opportunity to enjoy hiking, biking, horseback riding in the Indian Canyons, take jeep tours of the Palm Springs Wind Farm or nearby Joshua Tree National Park or take a ride up the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway for year-round outdoor adventures. You also have the option of Coachella Valley’s favorite past-time, golf as Palm Springs is one of the popular destinations for golf with over 100 private and public courses available throughout the Coachella Valley, including the famed O’Donnell Golf Club, the oldest course in the desert.

 

Palm Springs also meets the needs of indoor lovers by providing various options of indoor entertainment with exhibitions at the Palm Springs Art Museum, a range of boutique shops of the Palm Springs Uptown Design District, the scents and tastes of the diverse unusual cafes and restaurants in the downtown village area which host the customary weekly Palm Springs Village Fest. Palm Springs houses the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians turned Old Hollywood retreat giving visitors the opportunity to appreciate Southern California history. It has also been the setting of many film and television shoots since the early 1930s. It is in fact the host city for the Palm Springs International Film Festival & ShortFest, the American Documentary Film Festival, the Arthur Lyons Film Noire Festival, the Native Film Festival (a signature cultural event for the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum), and Cinema Diverse, the Palm Springs Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

 

In addition, it has for a long time remained the choice destination for national and international conferences. The Palm Springs Convention Center hosts the Palm Springs International Film Festival Gala, the Desert AIDS Project’s signature Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards, parties and events for the Dinah Shore/Club Skirts and White Party weekends. The Palm Springs Convention Center undertook and completed its expansion in 2005. This has created an addition of over 100,000 square feet including a breathtaking new design with natural colors and landscape shapes and contours from the surrounding desert. The design is attributed to Fentress Architects.

 

Every year lovers of architecture all around the world visit the Coachella Valley to catch a glimpse of the matchless wealth of mid-century architecture at Palm Springs. Such visits are usually more during the annual Palm Springs Modernism Week. Works of notable designers and architects are visible throughout the Palm Springs area. Some of such works include the works of William Cody, Edward H. Fickett, Albert Frey, A. Quincy Jones, William Krisel, John Lautner, Richard Neutra, Donald Wexler, E. Stewart Williams, Paul Williams, etc.

 

These astounding structures remain a centre of attraction for visitors throughout the year as tours are given by the Palm Springs Historical Society. The superb qualities of Palm Springs such as its matchless natural beauty, sunshine all through the year and its ever expanding wealth of cultural diversity, history, and resources contribute in making it the ideal destination for vacation and a home beyond a home.