Routes · North America

Tokyo to the California desert: Palm Springs and Joshua Tree

Tokyo → Palm Springs → Joshua Tree

Mid-century modern resort & a park of strange trees and boulders Best season (general guide): Oct–Apr

Southern California's desert is a winter escape, with a resort city of modernist houses and a national park of rock piles and spiky trees. This route spends three nights in Palm Springs and three by Joshua Tree. From Tokyo you'll connect through Los Angeles or San Francisco to Palm Springs. Palm Springs is a desert resort city in Riverside County, in the Coachella Valley of the Colorado Desert.

How to pace it: Spend days one to three in Palm Springs: day one, downtown; day two, aerial tramway to Mount San Jacinto; day three, mid-century homes and Indian Canyons. Then spend days four to six in Joshua Tree: day four, road north to the park; day five, Hidden Valley and Keys View; day six, night sky.

Covering about 94 square miles, it is the largest city in the county by land area. More than 10 percent of the city is reservation land of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, laid out in a checkerboard pattern. The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, with rotating cars, climbs from the desert floor towards the cool forests of Mount San Jacinto.

The city is known for its mid-century modern architecture, and Modernism Week each February opens many houses to visitors. The Indian Canyons, owned by the Agua Caliente, have palm oases and trails. Joshua Tree National Park is named after the Joshua tree, Yucca brevifolia, which grows in the park and the area around it. It lies about 130 miles east of Los Angeles.

The park sits where the higher Mojave Desert meets the lower Colorado Desert, which gives it two very different landscapes. Keys View looks over the Coachella Valley and, on clear days, to the San Andreas Fault. The Cholla Cactus Garden is a dense stand of teddybear cholla, best seen in morning or evening light. Autumn to spring is the season, while summer is extremely hot.

Palm Springs' Cahuilla name is Séc-he. The Coachella music festival is held each April in the valley at Indio.

Safety: Canada's advice for US is to take normal security precautions (updated 10 Oct 2026), and this is a domestic US trip with no State Department advisory.

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