Hotels in Palm Springs
The city of Palm Springs has a wide range of accommodations, but we particularly like the inns that have opened as a result of new owners renovating the many fabulous 40- to 60-year-old cottage complexes in the wind-shielded Tennis Club area west of Palm Canyon Drive. The other desert resort cities offer mostly sprawling complexes, many boasting world-class golf, tennis, or spa facilities and multiple on-site restaurants. Most are destinations in and of themselves, with activities for the whole family (including a whole lot of relaxing and pampering). If you're looking for a good base from which to shop or sightsee, Palm Springs is your best bet.
Note: Regardless of your choice, remember that the rates below are for high season (winter, generally Nov-May). During the hotter summer months, it's common to find $300 rooms going for $99 or less, as part of off-season packages. Even in high season, discounts for midweek stays are common.
Old Is New Again
Bring back the romance of the '50s with a vacation stay at the Twin Palms Sinatra Estate. Built in 1947 by Stewart Williams for Frank and his then-wife Nancy, it became the center of desert social life when Frank brought home a new bride, Ava Gardner. The 4,500-square-foot home has three bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a living room with massive glass doors that open to the patio, and the piano-shaped swimming pool. Period furniture sustains the atmosphere, with artwork, pottery, and textiles. It wasn't all peaches and cream in the Sinatra household -- note the chip in the sink, from a champagne bottle tossed during one of Frank's tiffs with Ava. But if you still dote on Ol' Blue Eyes, nostalgia is your bag, and you can afford $7,800 for 3 nights' minimum stay ($2,600 for each additional night), see www.timeandplace.com for availability, rates, and other information.
A La Quinta Bed & Breakfast Hideaway
Devotees of bed-and-breakfasts or boutique inns might be daunted by the La Quinta Resort's 800 rooms, but there's a way to enjoy this quiet, affluent end of the valley with a little more intimacy. Check out the hidden-secret Lake La Quinta Inn, 78-120 Caleo Bay (tel. 888/226-4546 or 760/564-7332; www.lakelaquintainn.com), a 13-room Norman-style B&B on the shores of a man-made lake, blocks from the famous resort. Exquisitely outfitted rooms, Wi-Fi, delightful hosts, on-site facials and massage, and a 24-hour pool and Jacuzzi complete the fantasy. Rates are $179 to $289 (double); suites are $289 to $399, including breakfast and wine in the afternoon.
Bookstore
Available as paperback
and as e-book.
19 Results
- Hotel
Ace Hotel and Swim Club Palm Springs
More than many other low-rise hotels in town, the Ace works to create a slick desert scene for guests who bring urban cool with them. The main pool is big, boozy, sun-baked, and buzzy—its other pool is for romance (or escaping poolside club events), broad and quiet. The windowless,…$$South of Downtown
- Hotel
Alcazar Palm Springs
Alcazar is a cozy, historic desert inn from years back—Spanish tile roofs, rooms that open onto a pretty central garden and pool—that has been stylishly and charmingly restored to modern tastes. Rooms are white to the extreme—floors, walls, high-luxury sheets, furniture, heavy…$$Downtown Design District - Hotel
Arrive Palm Springs
When it opened in 2016, much was made of this small hotel's pedigree (one of its Founders was Facebook's sixth employee) and its Millennial-slanted tweaks (the cocktail bar is the check-in desk, guests text a number for assistance instead of using an in-room phone—there are none).…$$Uptown Design District - Hotel
Avalon Hotel and Bungalows Palm Springs
White, black, and lemon yellow—that's the palate of the Avalon, which until mid-2015 was known as the Viceroy. It reaches for a bygone era of elegant exclusivity with Deco-style furniture and whitewashed decorative fireplaces. The Avalon keeps changing hands—once the Estrella, then…$$$Downtown - B&B
Colt's Lodge
Currently one of Palm Springs' most pristine properties, having opened in June of 2015, the L-shaped, ranch-style compound dates to 1954, so although it sparkles like new, it retains that private, Palm Springs style. The current owners, who came from Texas, have directed a glorious…$$Deepwell - Hotel
Del Marcos Hotel
A design buff's dream, the two-level Del Marcos is a perfectly restored 1947 hotel masterpiece by architect William F. Cod. The second you walk in, you gasp, because it nails that delicious bubblegum-colored Midcentury style that everyone thinks Palm Springs hotels are dripping in,…$$Downtown - Hotel
Drift Palm Springs
Drift Palm Springs notches three much-desired wins: It's in the middle of the town's mountain-shadowed and easily walked downtown area, it's freshly built (opened 2023), and it's reasonably priced. It's also as trendy as you might hope a Palm Springs property would be, giving you a…$$Downtown - Hotel
Hotel Zoso
The beleaguered Hard Rock Hotel bailed on Palm Springs in 2018, and the Zoso took over its facility nearly untouched. It moved into a low-slung, dirt-brown concrete hotel built in 1985, still aiming for a young, post-college crowd—so much so that guests are forced to sign an…$$Downtown - Hotel
Hyatt Palm Springs
Straight up, the best thing about the Hyatt is its location in the middle of town at Amado Road—you can leave your car with the valet (no self-parking, at least not on premises, but a free city parking structure is a block away) and walk to everything quite happily. The building…$$Downtown - Hotel
Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Resort & Spa
About 25 minutes' drive east of downtown Palm Springs among the modern and semi-suburban developments of Indian Wells, this full-service resort is designed to envelop you and allow you to forget about the outside world. Sitting on 45 acres of desert gardens, it's a machine of a…$$Indian Wells - Hotel
Kimpton The Rowan Palm Springs
You choose this newly built (2017) hotel in the middle of town if you value a few factors: the ability to forget about your car and walk nearly everywhere in downtown, an easy contemporary design that doesn't assault you with mid-century modern cuteness, and a healthy range of places…$$Downtown - Hotel
La Quinta Resort & Club
If you have the resources for it, there are few desert hideaways as magical, or as storied, as La Quinta. In 1926, a wealthy young man opened a tiny resort of six self-contained casitas and a restaurant for them, and he set about attracting the cream of Hollywood to vacation there.…$$$La Quinta - Hotel
Renaissance Indian Wells Resort & Spa
The Renaissance, 13 miles east of Palm Springs, is a lovely mid-level resort property that keeps busy with weddings, meetings, and family getaways—the atmosphere of the central pool area, which has its own zero-entry beach section, depends greatly on the spirit of the groups that are…$$Indian Wells - Hotel
Riviera Palm Springs
If you're looking for a rich dose of Palm Springs style without extreme pricing or snobbishness, the Riviera, about a mile north of the heart of downtown, will suit you. The grounds are well laid-out: Five free-standing, two-level wings radiate from a large central free-form pool…$$North Downtown - Hotel
Santiago Resort
Palm Springs has many gay-oriented hotels and many of them are of iffy quality, but the Santiago brings class to the market. There aren't many rooms—just 23, on two sides around a private clothing-optional, misted pool—but they're up-to-date, freshly renovated, and the linens are…$$Warm Sands area - Hotel
Sparrows Lodge
Find soothing simplicity at this newly opened oasis, which is marked by nothing more than a sign with two birds on it. Behind a wall and a barnlike foyer that shields it from the road, creating a tranquil escape, a restored motel is now crossed with something akin to a farm retreat.…$$Deepwell - Hotel
The Monroe Palm Springs
One of the best values in downtown, the Monroe took a tired, old America's Best Value Inn and waved the affordable-boutique wand over it. So although it's laid out like a conventional motel, with two levels of exterior-corridor rooms arranged in an L shape around a partly shaded…$Downtown Design District - Hotel
The Parker Palm Springs
Operated by Starwood's niche luxury brand Le Meridien, the Parker simulates the high-hedged privacy of a millionaire's estate because it once was one: Gene Autry and Merv Griffin in turn owned this 13-acre spread, and Autry's original two-bedroom Melody Ranch house is still there and…$$$East Palm Springs - Hotel
The Saguaro Palm Springs
Cheerfully bright and budget-appropriate, the three-story Saguaro is a good place for families who want to have a stylish time without succumbing to pretentiousness or the Palm Springs party culture. Despite being successfully run through the design template, furniture feels like…$$Deepwell
