Things to Do in Palm Springs in January

January is the most expensive month of the year in Greater Palm Springs, and the one with the most going on. The film festival and the golf tournament land within two weeks of each other, the hotels know it, and the rates say so.

It is also, statistically, the wettest month here. That surprises people who booked a desert in January.

What January actually costs

This is peak season pricing and there is no way around it. Rooms are at their highest, restaurants want reservations, and the two big events pull in enough people that the whole valley tightens up for a couple of weeks.

If the dates are flexible and the events are not the point, November does the same weather for less money. If the events are the point, book early and stop reading price comparisons.

The film festival is eleven days, not one night

The thing most visitors have heard of is the awards gala — one evening at the Palm Springs Convention Center, full of people who are in town for the Golden Globes anyway. That is not the festival.

The festival around it runs eleven or twelve days across multiple venues. A recent edition screened 169 films from 72 countries, including 44 of the official national submissions for the Best International Feature Film Oscar, programmed as a block. That block is the reason locals buy passes: it is a chance to watch most of the international Oscar field months before any of it reaches American cinemas.

The first one opened in January 1990 at the Plaza Theatre downtown with Cinema Paradiso, ran five days, and drew about 17,000 people. It was Mayor Sonny Bono’s idea, and he sold it as the Cannes of the West. The January timing was deliberate and entirely practical — it sat after the golf tournament, before the Oscars, and close enough to the Golden Globes that the stars were already in Los Angeles and could be talked into the drive.

More: how to actually attend the film festival

Golf week, and the name that keeps changing

The other January fixture is the PGA Tour stop at PGA West and La Quinta Country Club, currently called The American Express. It has been called a lot of things. It started in 1960 as the Palm Springs Golf Classic, became the Bob Hope Desert Classic in 1965, then the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic in 1986, then ran through the Humana Challenge, the CareerBuilder Challenge and the Desert Classic before arriving at its current name.

Hope agreed to lend his name on two conditions: he would attend no meetings, and local people would run it. He tied his involvement to the proceeds helping build Eisenhower Medical Center, which they did.

The tournament floats with the PGA Tour calendar but lands in the second half of January. Exact dates are on the event’s own site.

More: The American Express guide · the concerts · the Bob Hope house

The wettest month in one of the driest places

Average high 71, average low 48. Both of those are pleasant and neither is the interesting number.

The interesting number is 1.14 inches of rain, which makes January the wettest month on the calendar here. February is barely behind it at 1.11. Between them, those two months carry about half the annual rainfall — and the annual total is 4.61 inches, so “half” is not much. It still means the one month people picture as guaranteed sunshine is the month most likely to hand them a grey afternoon.

January also owns the all-time cold record: 19 degrees, on 22 January 1937. Nights in the forties are normal. Pack a jacket, and do not assume the pool is heated.

What to do with it

• Ride the tram. The Mountain Station sits at 8,516 feet and runs 30 to 40 degrees colder than the valley floor, which in January means actual snow and rentable snowshoes about ten minutes from a palm tree.
• Take the hikes now. The canyons are on their full seven-day winter schedule and the weather is as good as it gets for walking uphill.
• Buy a festival pass instead of a gala ticket, unless the gala is the point.
• Book anything involving a table.

More guides

• Things to do in Palm Springs this weekend
• February in Palm Springs
• December in Palm Springs
• The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway
• The best hikes in Indian Canyons
• The Palm Springs weather guide

Weather figures are NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals for Palm Springs International Airport. Records are from the National Weather Service. Hours and dates change; check the operator before you go.