The 52 Best Places in Riverside

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star

Larry Ellison's Palm Springs compound is the backdrop, but the spa at Sensei Porcupine Creek runs on a different philosophy than most desert retreats. The pitch is data-driven wellness, with guides who are actual behavior-change scientists rather than people in linen who hand you cucumber water. You can go deep on biometrics, or fill the day with treatments and pool time and call it research. Vogue named it among the 100 best spas in the world.

1. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

The spa inside the Parker Palm Springs calls itself the Palm Springs Yacht Club, which is exactly as absurd as it sounds for a property landlocked in the desert. Jonathan Adler designed it, so expect nautical whimsy alongside the saltwater pool, eucalyptus steam rooms, and saunas. Treatments are personalized and nearly all end with a scalp massage. Vogue named it one of the 100 best spas in the world.

1. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

Tangerine doors set into a 23-foot breeze block wall are your first clue that this Palm Springs resort operates on its own frequency. Jonathan Adler designed the interiors, so a suit of armor guards the lobby, groovy carpeting climbs the stairs, and eccentric glamour is the unifying theory. Lanai rooms, a pétanque court, and a hammock by the pool suggest a schedule built around doing very little with great commitment.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The multicolored lights wrapping the 16-story tower make the resort hard to miss in the low-slung Coachella Valley skyline. This is a full-service casino resort with 71,000 square feet of gaming floor, two outdoor pools, a spa, a concert venue, and a sports bar with screens big enough to cause a mild panic. Las Vegas is four hours away, which the resort is clearly fine with. Forbes Four Star.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

The room tiers at this 28-room boutique hotel in downtown Palm Springs are simply Good, Better, and Best, which either signals confidence or a refreshing allergy to hospitality jargon. All rooms come with original artwork and Waterworks bath hardware; Better adds a wet bar, and Best earns mountain views with a private balcony. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key. Midcentury Palm Springs, so pack accordingly: linen and sunscreen.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

While the rest of Palm Springs does mid-century California, this 11-room adults-only hideaway is cosplaying 1960s St. Tropez, and somehow it works. Sunny colors, bohemian interiors, a pool built for lingering, and an orchard that makes you forget the desert is right there. Breakfast is included; dinner you'll find nearby with a little help from the staff. A Michelin Key property.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

Bathtubs carved from old horse troughs are the giveaway that Sparrows Lodge has a point of view. This Michelin Key boutique hotel wears its ranch bones lightly: recycled mid-century wood, a red barn that opens for dinner and drinks at night, and a pool ringed by guests in retro swimwear who look like they read actual books. Horseshoes, wooden tennis rackets, private campfires. Summer camp, basically, for people with good taste in cocktails.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Key

A botanical art installation behind the front desk and water features throughout the lobby signal that this casino resort in the San Bernardino foothills is trying to be something calmer than the 6,500 slot machines on the floor below might suggest. The 432-room tower earns a Forbes Four Star rating, with a wellness spa, poolside cabanas, and a full spread of dining options. Highland is 70 minutes from L.A., which is part of the pitch.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

Perched on a 650-foot bluff above the Coachella Valley, this Ritz-Carlton resort trades the usual desert-floor setup for sweeping views that make the surrounding mountains feel like wallpaper you can't believe is real. The 24-acre property has had its ups and downs over the years, but a massive renovation brought it back sharper than before. Pools, spa, and the full Ritz polish are all present, with palm-tree sunsets doing most of the heavy lifting.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

Gondolas glide through the atrium waterways past flamingos, which is either the most Palm Desert thing imaginable or proof that nobody here is thinking small. This sprawling Coachella Valley resort comes with two Ted Robinson golf courses, a 38,000-square-foot spa, multiple restaurants, and tennis on clay, grass, and hard courts. The Santa Rosa Mountains frame the whole scene whenever you step outside.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The Spanish Colonial architecture and a pool that looks like it was designed for someone to be discovered next to set the scene at Colony Palms, a boutique hotel with a past that includes an alleged mobster founder and a devoted Hollywood following. The place has been through a few names and a full redesign, but the glamour reads as deliberate rather than accidental, which is probably the point.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The origin story involves black flowers bought from a French roadside cart, and the whole hotel has leaned into it ever since. Moody botanical wallpaper by Ellie Cashman lines the interiors, while giant murals spill into a poolside courtyard with fire pits and Adirondack chairs. Casitas and suites have terracotta floors and midcentury furnishings. The speakeasy-style rosé bar keeps things from taking themselves too seriously.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Mid-century Modern bones meet the kind of boutique hotel philosophy that decided exclusivity was overrated. The Rowan is a Kimpton property, which means the design is sharp without being cold and the vibe tilts toward grown-up fun rather than hushed reverence, which suits Palm Springs and its cheerful, unapologetic hedonism perfectly. A rooftop pool with mountain views helps make the case for staying in rather than going anywhere.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Named for a French pop song from the sixties, this adults-only boutique hotel in the Warm Sands neighborhood runs small, quiet, and easier on a travel budget than most of what Palm Springs has to offer. Twenty-seven rooms, a pool, a fire pit, and drinks in the courtyard cover the essentials. There's no restaurant on site, so dinner means a short drive into town, which most guests seem to consider a fine trade.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

That sharply angled canopy over the entrance looks lifted straight from a roadside motel, which is more or less the point. The Royal Sun is a boutique hotel on the edge of downtown Palm Springs where mid-century modern is taken seriously rather than gestured at: boxy stone facade, tangerine trim, outdoor corridors, and inside, a bar and restaurant with checkered floors and curved booths that feel genuinely period, not costume.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Postwar Hollywood types used to slip away to this adults-only boutique hotel in a quieter pocket of Palm Springs, and the updated version still runs on the same premise: discretion, a certain elegance, and very little fuss. The rooms have been brought up to current luxury-boutique standards without the place losing its original character, and the bar alone gives people a reason to linger longer than they planned.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

Three geothermal pools fed by natural hot springs anchor this mid-century motel in Desert Hot Springs, twenty minutes outside Palm Springs proper. The name isn't clever branding; the springs predate the golf courses and the architecture pilgrims by a long stretch. Rooms wrap around the pools in classic roadside motel fashion, which means the whole thing feels like a very good idea someone had in 1955 and nobody has improved upon since.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A spring-fed pool heated by the earth itself sets the tone at this nine-room boutique hotel in Desert Hot Springs, halfway between Joshua Tree and Palm Springs. The mid-century bones have been around forever, though the interior has softened toward warm, organic textures over time. A small spa rounds things out. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels, which tracks for a place this quietly sure of itself.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Indian Wells sits quietly between Palm Springs and Indio, and most people drive straight through to the tennis tournament and leave. The Sands Hotel and Spa gives you a reason to stay put, a boutique luxury property with the kind of design and comfort that makes the whole Coachella Valley feel like it was your idea all along. The pool situation, as you'd expect in the desert, is the center of gravity.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. AAA Approved

Airstream trailers with walk-in rain showers and kitchenettes in the middle of the Mojave: that's the pitch, and AutoCamp Joshua Tree commits to it without irony. Guests choose between the trailers and permanent suites, and the gap between the two is smaller than expected, both landing somewhere between minimalist boutique hotel and very stylish mobile home. For people who want the desert without actually roughing it.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Gene Autry and Roy Rogers built Pioneertown as a permanent Old West film set so they wouldn't have to drive to the desert every time Hollywood needed tumbleweeds. The town never quite became the resort they imagined, but it got there eventually. This boutique motel is the lodging that finally fits the moment, sitting in the high desert near Joshua Tree where the line between stage set and actual town has always been pleasantly blurry.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Palm Springs

1. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Palm Springs

1. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Palm Springs

1. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Palm Springs

The mahogany L-shaped bar gives away what Paul Bar/Food is before you've ordered anything: a serious cocktail bar that happens to feed you well. It sits next to a strip-mall dispensary, which keeps the tourists guessing and the locals comfortable. Classic drinks get quiet tweaks, a frozen Sidecar here, a black Manhattan there, alongside a short food menu of wings, burgers, and steak frites that nobody's complaining about.

1. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Palm Springs
2. Vogue The Best Restaurants in Palm Springs

Stone tubs sit outside facing the mountains, and the firepits on each private patio do most of the entertaining after dark. RESET is a design-forward desert hotel on 180 acres near the north entrance of Joshua Tree National Park, with modular, earth-toned rooms stocked with pour-over coffee and not much else on purpose. There's a saltwater pool, sauna, and cold plunge for anyone who needs a reason to stay on the property.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Palm Springs

1. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Palm Springs

A dark, stylish room next to the Twist PS hotel that takes itself a little more seriously than most of what Palm Springs has to offer, and earns it. Tailor Shop is a cocktail bar with a short, well-considered menu, the kind of place where a Ward 8 or a Sazerac arrives looking like someone thought about it. The crowd tends toward dressed, not sunburned.

1. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Palm Springs

The red leather booths survived the renovation intact, and the 1970s diner vibe is so well-preserved you half-expect a harvest-gold appliance somewhere in the back. The Heyday is a casual burger shop on North Palm Canyon serving smash burgers, fried chicken sandwiches, and wings alongside strong classic cocktails and a retro playlist that earns its keep. The kind of place that makes Palm Springs feel less like a wellness retreat and more like a road trip stop.

1. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Palm Springs
2. Eater The Best Restaurants in Palm Springs

1. Eater The Best Cocktail Bars in Palm Springs

1. Vogue The Best Restaurants in Palm Springs
2. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. West