palm tree paradise

Last weekend, my friends and I trekked out to the desert for a little weekend getaway in one of my favorite Southern California cities: Palm Springs.Yes, it’s the desert. The desert in the summer, no less. Yes, it was hot as hell (an excruciating 110 degrees at one point) – but Palm Springs is bustling with an energy that’s hard to find anywhere else.

Kellen and I left Saturday morning around 9am, but not before I stopped at the supermarket to stock up on some white wine for us to sip on in the hotel room. I drove my Prius, since it’s the friendliest on gas and I can easily make it there and back on one tank (hybrid cars, for the win!).

The drive from outside of LA to Palm Springs is fairly short, about 2.5 hours. We stopped in LA to pick up Emily en route, but we still made really good time and arrived at our hotel, The Caliente Tropics, around lunchtime. I booked our hotel about a week in advance for a very reasonable price, however, some of our friends who went the same weekend booked their hotel the day of and got a WAY better deal at a way cooler place (a future note to self).

Once we arrived, we changed into our swimsuits and jumped over to our hotel’s pool – since it was SO hot and we just wanted to find some sort of relief from the weather. Needless to say, even the pool in Palm Springs in the summer feels like a jacuzzi. We still had a blast floating in the water and people watching for several hours.

When dinner time rolled around, we changed and then decided to trek over to The Parker, a famous boutique hotel in Palm Springs that I’ve always wanted to explore. The entry wall alone is enough to make me do a happy dance and the interior of the hotel is above and beyond what I ever could of imagined. We definitely know where we are staying the next time we decide to have a weekend getaway out there.

For dinner, we ate at a little Mexican place in downtown Palm Springs. On a Saturday night, the main street is PACKED and it can be kind of difficult to get a table at a restaurant. We had to wait almost 45 minutes for our table, which was fine considering there was a fabulous hat shop next door that we were able to kill some time in. We ate outside, but the misters that are permanently attached to the patios of most of the restaurants in that area made the nighttime heat almost bearable.

From there, we made our way to some of the bars in the area, where we were able to meet up with more of our friends and enjoy a great bar that literally played show tunes non-stop (my sister would have cried from happiness at this place). Prices are fairly cheap – with most cocktails being around $6 at most of the bars that we went to (which is a breath of fresh air after partying in LA).

Note: ladies, if you are trying to get away to a place where you may find your future husband, Palm Springs is not necessarily the place for you. The majority of the bars are of the gay variety (which is completely fine) and the weekend population consists of probably 85% gay men and 15% women celebrating their bachelorette parties.

The next morning, we woke up late and drove to breakfast at a joint that was recommended to us by the front desk of our hotel. We made it back with just enough time to pack up our bags and check out. We hit up a Starbucks on our way out, where we were joined by a few more of our friends who were also in town for the weekend. We all caravanned over to the famous roadside Dinosaurs – where we searched for Chris Pratt a la Jurassic Park, but were very unsuccessful.

In terms of what to wear if you’re headed out there? Loose clothing is KEY. I wore my bathing suit under the majority of the pieces I was wearing during the day (just in case we hopped into a pool) and then at night I changed into this fabulous one-piece that I picked up from Windsor a couple of weeks prior. I actually felt bad for anyone I saw trying to wear skinny jeans out there in that heat – it just wouldn’t be possible to have a good time while feeling so constricted. Fun fact: there’s a fantastic outlet mall about 20 minutes outside of downtown that has every store you can think of (including Valentino, Alexander McQueen and Jimmy Choo.) It is definitely a worthwhile stop for the fashion obsessed.

Overall, I never come back from Palm Springs disappointed. I always feel like each trip is a new experience and that we take away something new from each visit. What I did learn this time around is that I will probably never go back again in August, just cause the weather is overwhelmingly hot, and that after seeing it for myself, The Parker is definitely worth the money and most likely where we will stay the next time we go.

That all being said, when we got home, I spent the next week fantasizing about Palm Springs and the dreaminess of the area. Can I go back now?