Things to Do in Greater Palm Springs

There's no such thing as nothing to do in the Coachella Valley. There's just a lot of people doing the same four things while the good stuff sits twenty minutes up the road.

This is the big one — day trips, festivals, trailheads, museums, roadside dinosaurs, and the events actually worth rearranging a weekend for. Pioneertown, Julian, Big Bear, Idyllwild, and a few drives that look a lot shorter on a map than they feel in a car.

When something's overrated, we say so. Some of these are worth going back to every year. Some are worth exactly one photo and a story you tell later. The posts tell you which.

Start with the day trips roundup. If you've lived here twenty years and figure you've seen it all — you almost certainly haven't been to half of this.