Where to Stay for Head Trip—and How to Get There

Book your Head Trip ride before you fall in love with a hotel pool. For the October 10–11 festival at Empire Polo Club in Indio, the useful room is the one with a workable trip back to it.

Start with Indio and La Quinta if the festival is the whole reason for coming. Consider Palm Desert or Indian Wells if a particular hotel and shuttle stop fit your group. Choose Palm Springs when spending time there is part of the trip, and budget your time for the journey east.

For the artists, passes and entry essentials, start with our main Head Trip guide.

Pick an area, then check the actual address

Indio and La Quinta: start the search here

Empire Polo Club is in Indio, with La Quinta beside it. Staying at this end of the valley avoids building a Palm Springs-to-Indio journey into both festival days.

The Head Trip shuttle list includes Fairfield Inn & Suites Indio and La Quinta Resort & Club. The Fairfield is at 42655 Marmara Street in Indio; La Quinta Resort is at 49-499 Eisenhower Drive in La Quinta. Use those addresses when comparing nearby accommodation, not just the city name in a booking filter.

A rental described as “near the polo grounds” still needs an arrival plan. Check its entrance against the festival’s pedestrian access instructions before treating it as walkable. A pin near a fence isn’t a gate.

Palm Desert and Indian Wells: choose around a stop

These cities sit between Palm Springs and the festival end of the valley. Two hotel stops to compare are JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa, at 74-855 Country Club Drive in Palm Desert, and Tommy Bahama Miramonte Resort & Spa, at 45000 Indian Wells Lane in Indian Wells.

For this trip, their useful feature is being named shuttle stops. Compare the complete room cost and your group’s needs before choosing one; a stop on a festival list isn’t a promise of room availability.

Indian Wells Tennis Garden is also a designated park-and-ride location. That gives people staying elsewhere in the area another way to join the shuttle system.

Palm Springs: make it a deliberate choice

Palm Springs makes sense when you want to spend your time before the music there. It is farther west, so it adds a longer cross-valley journey than starting in Indio.

Palm Springs Convention Center is a shuttle stop and designated park-and-ride location. Its address is 277 North Avenida Caballeros. Look at the route between your hotel and that stop, including the trip back after the shuttle drops you off.

“Greater Palm Springs” covers a lot of ground. Read the property’s street address before assuming you booked a room in Palm Springs itself.

Buy the shuttle service you actually want

The Any Time, Any Line pass covers both festival days and multiple valley stops. Scheduled Departure is a separate option from La Quinta Resort, JW Marriott and Palm Springs Convention Center, with departure and return selections. Compare those selections with the sets you want to hear before buying.

The shuttle FAQ lists outbound service from 3–8 p.m. and return service ending 60 minutes after the music finishes. Check your pre-event instructions for your service and stop. The organizer warns of longer waits during peak periods, so leave room around the first set you care about.

Hotel pickup and permission to park at that hotel are different questions. For a park-and-ride plan, use one of the designated locations and confirm the parking instructions. For another stop, arrange how you will get there and back.

If you need a wheelchair-accessible shuttle, contact the provider now. It cannot guarantee a lift-equipped vehicle for requests received less than two weeks before the event.

Read the package contents before comparing totals

The official hotel offerings include full GA or VIP packages, hotel-only options and hotel-plus-shuttle options. The latter two do not include festival admission. That is a substantial thing to discover after congratulating yourself on the deal.

Two-night stays run Saturday to Monday; three-night stays run Friday to Monday. If you arrive Saturday, ask about luggage storage and room check-in before planning to leave immediately for the festival.

Compare the full group total, room occupancy, admission, shuttle inclusion, parking charges and cancellation terms. Check the property’s minimum check-in age, too: being old enough for the festival doesn’t automatically make you old enough to check into every hotel.

Driving works if you’ve settled who drives home

For locals, compare a designated park-and-ride with driving directly to the grounds. Include the drive home from the shuttle stop in that decision.

Free festival parking is first come, first served. Preferred parking requires a separate pass and guarantees a place in that lot. The lots open at 1 p.m.; cars remaining after 2 a.m. can be towed. Neither option is overnight accommodation.

Use Head Trip’s event directions, and follow signs and traffic staff. For rideshare or a friend collecting you, check the designated pickup instructions before agreeing on a meeting point. Don’t send the driver to the day-parking entrance.

Camping trades the daily drive for a campsite

Car camping gives you a 10-by-30-foot site for one car and your camp. Everyone needs festival admission, purchased separately. Camping runs from Friday at noon until Monday at 9 a.m.; vehicle check-in has its own hours.

There are showers, water refills and a general store. Bring the gear you need for wind, dust and sleeping outdoors. A shower trailer is useful; it does not turn a tent into a hotel room.

You can’t take the camping car out for a casual errand and return. Bring supplies with you, and check the supermarket shuttle for grocery trips. If your group wants adjacent sites, arrive together with the same camping-pass type. Read the vehicle restrictions before booking a camper van; RVs and vehicles with toilets aren’t permitted.

Put wristband pickup ahead of the shuttle

If you need will call, collect the order at Indian Wells Tennis Garden before traveling to the festival. It is also on the shuttle network, so a shuttle-pass holder can ride onward from there. If you return to a different stop, make sure you haven’t stranded your car at the first one.

Finish your meal and supply run before heading in. Our Indio lunch guide can help with the food part. Save the festival’s return instructions on your phone; that is the bit of the itinerary you will want handy at the end of the night.