Palm Springs, California

Palm Springs is a great city! During the summer it is very hot but during the wintertime it is PERFECT! It is summer here year around and during the winter time the temperature gets around 70 degrees which is amazing. During the winter you can still go to the pool and tan! Palm springs is an iconic place known for hosting Hollywood stars throughout the years. If you are driving here from LA area you will notice the large windmills, these are iconic too! There is also a place off the I-10 where there are iconic dinosaurs you can go inside, but most people just take pictures.

Palm Springs is like no other place with its sun shining year around and palm trees everywhere. It is beautiful! There are so many places to stay in Palm Springs; it is also a hideout for many Hollywood stars. I will recommend some great hotels such as;

• The Hard Rock
• Ace Hotel
• The Saguaro
• The Willows Historic Palm Springs Inn
• Korakia Pensione
• Le Parker Meridien
• Viceroy Palm Springs
• Two Bunch Palms Resort & Spa

The most beautiful hotels and my favorite include the Ace Hotel, Korakia Pensione, Le parker Meridien and Two Bunch Palms Resort & Spa.

Depending where you want to be located but there are a ton of hotels in Palm Springs! It is a very artsy area with a lot of older Spanish/Mediterranean decorated places, very beautiful.

There is the strip located in palm springs with numerous restaurants and shops! This place is fun to go to and walk around; they have a lot of great restaurants. Some include:

• Cheeky’s- you should go for brunch, they have great breakfast and pastries! Just make sure to get there before the rush or you'll be waiting forever.
• Las Casuelas- one of my favorite Mexican restaurants. The restaurant in itself is beautifully decorated, very Old Spanish style. The food is great, you get huge portions and their chips and guac are my favorite.
• Café Europe- this is a great place for breakfast and lunch. Has a lot of assortment!
• Matchbox- this is a great wood fired pizza place!
• Kaiser grille- great steaks!
• Lulu California Bistro- one of my favorite restaurants here. It has a lot of different items on the menu but it is all-amazing.
• Cold Stone Creamery- obviously well known but I love their ice cream. The Birthday Cake Remix is my favorite!



• Brandini Toffee- This place is so good you need to go in and try their toffee and you will see how amazing it is! They also have dipped ice cream with toffee as well as toffee milk shakes!
• Great Shakes- You must go here they have the best milkshakes ever! This is the place where the shakes have the little donuts on top! They are to die for.

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• Smoke Tree BBQ Bar & Grill- Great BBQ. Everything is so good and perfectly done! I love the mac & cheese.
• Le Vallauris- This is a high-end French restaurant; it was very good. I had the duck!
• Tyler’s Burgers- my favorite burger spot in Palm Springs! The burgers are amazing and so are the fries! All outdoors seating, it is a fun spot.
• Sherman’s Deli- this place has been around for a long time! They have great food, good sandwiches with huge portions! They also have a bakery and have huge desserts. It is very good!
• Fisherman’s Market & Grill- this is a great fish place; they have specials for lunch but has been around for a long time as well! Great fish tacos.

There are lots of cool bars on the strip as well as nightclubs. The Hard Rock is a fun place to go to the bar and club! There are many clubs and bars just take your pick!

There are some fun day activities that you can do such as hiking, the tram, Air Museum, and the Water Park.

Hiking- My favorite two hikes are the Andreas Canyon Trail and the Tahquitz Canyon. I like these hikes because they are on the Indian reservation and you can still see Indian perseveres. The hikes also feature water such as streams and waterfalls. The Tahquitz Canyon trail has a waterfall and it is beautiful! You have to pay for the hikes, not much I think, around 10 dollars or so but it is worth it!

Air museum- this place features many planes that were used during the World Wars. This is a really interesting museum and you get to see all the aircraft and if you want you can even fly in a plane!

Water Park- if you’re feeling hot and want to cool off there is the Palm Springs water parked called Wet ‘n Wild. Great place to take kids and cool off during the hot heat.

Windmill Tours- you can go on a tour of the iconic windmills! This is a great tour, it is very explanatory and you learn a lot. If you want some background information, you can go to their website and it gives you explanations of things to know before you go! You can see windmills and how big they actually are!

Palm Springs Aerial Tramway- this is a fun place to go, you can go up the gondola to the top and there is a restaurant if you want to eat. Hike around up there and explore the beautiful wildlife it has to offer!

Celebrity Tours-this is a fun tour to go on and see where they filmed movies in Palm Springs and where celebrities eat or live.

Palm Springs Architecture Tour

Palm Springs Ghost Tours

The Modern Tour

Adventure Hummer Tours

There is another city close by Palm Springs called Palm Desert about 15 min drive down highway 111 which connects Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Indio and so on. So it is easy to go around these cities using just this highway! If you want to get out of Palm Springs and head to any other city there are a lot for great things to do in every city.

See my post on Palm Desert.

Palm Springs International Film Festival is an event every year usually in January. It is a couple weeks long consisting of films being shown at local theaters and schools and then at the end is the award ceremony.

This event is very elegant. Many stars arrive on the red carpet and take pictures and talk to the press. It is very fun going to see the films because they are amazing films if they are in the film festival! It is also fun waiting in line and meeting people and conversing about the film and what they have heard about it and the other ones they have seen.

The award ceremony is very fun! It is dinner during the awards then after they have a big party. The awards are held at the Palm Springs Convention Center. There is a cocktail hour ahead of the awards while everyone arrives to the convention center. Then everyone is asked to sit down and you sit at your table while people start to speak. During this time they serve you appetizers and drinks. Once the award show starts going and they start to hand out the awards is when you are served dinner. The food is very good as well; it is a high-end event so nothing of the lesser would do. It is fun to watch the awards because the actors, actresses, directors, and etc. from the movies come up on stage and speak. So you get to see clips of the movies and the main stars in them. My favorite part is the after party that is held at the Parker Palm Springs. The party is also only for the attendees of the awards ceremony you must have your ticket present.

The party is very nice and there are dance floors, as well as lots of seating and food and drinks. This is fun because there’s djs and you can dance and let loose. Also some of the actors and stars attend this party so it is fun to see them and even take a picture with them! Everyone goes to the after party even people who have tickets to the awards show skip the awards and just go to the after party.

All in all this is a great night and if you have the chance to experience it I suggest you go! Don’t miss the movies being awarded either, try to watch them in theaters or at home because they are very good movies.