Palm Desert sits in the Coachella Valley at the foot of the Santa Rosa Mountains, about 15 miles southeast of Palm Springs. It has the sun-bleached swagger of a wealthy resort town — manicured golf courses, open-air shopping on El Paseo, and the kind of winter warmth that draws Canadians south in droves — but it also has one of the best wildlife parks in California.
El Paseo is the town's spine: a mile-long boulevard of galleries, boutiques, and restaurants that gets compared to Rodeo Drive, though the comparisons flatter nobody. More interesting is the Living Desert, a 1,200-acre zoo and botanical garden that takes desert ecology seriously and actually teaches you something. If you're passing through the broader desert region, Palm Desert makes a comfortable base — quieter than Palm Springs, less sceney, but with enough of its own going on to justify a day or two.