There are many, many terrible parking lots in the Coachella Valley and, honestly, you would probably be better off just grabbing an Uber everywhere during The Season – a time when you consider yourself lucky to come back to your car to discover it has not been backed into by another driver, scraped by someone’s shopping cart, or the dude next to you parked way over the line and left you about 4 inches of room to try to get into your car. This assumes that those who believe the entire parking lot belongs to them have left you any space to park at all. But, what parking lot is the worst?
Well, there are many to choose from. The River in Rancho Mirage (especially on the east side by Yard House and P.F. Chang’s) is awful and can be totally insane. Then there’s the Westfield Mall, both Coachella Valley Costcos, and don’t get me started on some of the dumb things people do while trying to parallel park in downtown Palm Springs.
As for the worst parking lot though, it has to be the Trader Joe’s parking lot in Palm Desert.
The lots all Trader Joe’s are horrific – and not just the other desert TJ’s in La Quinta and Cathedral City. I mean all of them, everywhere. But, the Palm Desert Trader Joe’s parking lot may just be the worst of the worst as it is located right in the center of snow bird central and those part-time, terrible driving residents need their cheap wine and Ezekiel bread!!! And they are going to park as shitty as possible when getting it, probably back into you on the way out, and, if you try to just walk through the lot, watch out – because it’s rare that one of these drivers will actually stop for you.
As if that’s not bad enough, the Palm Desert Trader Joe’s is right next to a Michael’s and a fish place that the blue hairs can’t get enough of. This only adds to the chaos of the small parking lot that serves the center.
The trick, of course, is to just park behind Trader Joe’s, but don’t tell anyone that because I don’t want to lose my super-secret spot. Seriously. DON’T TELL PEOPLE THIS.
What do you think? Is the Palm Desert Trader Joe’s the worst parking lot in the Coachella Valley? Let’s discuss in the comments.
