It’s festival season in the Coachella Valley, and while there are many guides about what to do at the festival (Bring an empty bottle, they’ll let you do that, and hydrate.), there aren’t as many about what to do in the Coachella Valley when you’re not at the festivals. You justifiably may now be thinking that this blog is a bit late considering Coachella is done, and all that is left is Stagecoach, but dear reader, there are reasons for that. One, more pressing things were afoot, and two, Coachella attendees tend to be a bit younger than Stagecoach, which makes them more adaptable to weather and less likely to do other things except hanging at a pool when they’re not at the polo grounds.
Aside, I do want to point out that Stagecoach does not mean calmer than Coachella. I used to own a vacation rental in the Coachella Valley, and while renting to any festival goer was risky, it was well known that Coachella attendees tended to be calmer and more cannabis oriented, while Stagecoach attendees were light beer and Fireball enthusiasts that would break stuff. We usually didn’t rent to Stagecoach attendees.
Other than formally being a party pooper landlord, you may be wondering why I’m worth listening to on the subject. Here are my other bona fides. For one, I’m old enough that I attended the first ever Coachella when it was an inexpensive fall festival headlined by Beck, Rage Against the Machine, and Tool, along with Moby at the height of his Play power. It was $50/day, it was awesome, and we stayed at a friend’s parents vacation home for free–times have changed, which I've learned from attending many subsequent festivals (including Desert Trip, AKA Oldchella). From that first visit, I developed a love for the desert (when it’s not a billion degrees) as a respite from living in Los Angeles, and also a wholesale change from where I grew up in Seattle. While the Pacific Northwest is obviously beautiful, you have to be on something tall to see horizons. Horizons in the desert are everywhere with a much redder color palette.
I love it so much in the desert that after I got married a decade ago, my wife and I purchased a house in Palm Desert, and during Covid, were able to leave Los Angeles and live here full time. While the summers are admittedly brutal (we do our best to travel, often heading back to Seattle where it’s rarely hot), for most of the year, it’s one of the greatest places to live in the world.
That said, it’s the desert. It can be very cold, very hot, and very windy, all within the same day. Coachella festival weekend one this year broke heat records. Coachella festival weekend two was straight cold (Friends who attended said Goldenvoice was selling those foil emergency blankets at a ridiculous markup and half the festival looked like wrapped burritos.). Stagecoach is looking like it’s going to be cold, and if it’s cold in late April, it means it’s going to be windy, and since it’s the third festival and all the grass on the fields will likely be trampled, it’s going to be a dust bowl–plan accordingly.
It’s at this point where you may be wondering when I will get to the point, so here goes.
Geography
The Coachella Valley is long. It’s about an hour to drive from one side to the other on I-10. Also, neither Palm Springs or the polo grounds are on the interstate, they're both pretty far south of it, so going from Palm Springs to Indio is not a straight shot. Folks often associate the valley with just Palm Springs, because that’s the most famous town and where the airport for us normies is. What they don’t realize is that Indio, where the festival is, is nearly an hour southeast from Palm Springs, and is much further from Los Angeles than Palm Springs.
Palm Springs is at the west end of the Valley, with Indio being on the east end of it, with a few cities in between. South of Indio is the Salton Sea, which in and of itself is worth seeing if you’re into Mad Max style desolation. The Salton Sea shouldn’t be there, it’s only there because some engineers at the turn of the last century screwed up while trying to irrigate off of the Colorado river and lost control of it for a couple of years with the river just dumping into the lowest part of the valley. It is maintained by farm runoff but is shrinking with less wasteful irrigation methods. It had a season of being a vacation destination in the 50’s and 60’s, those Beach Boys vids where they were waterskiing were shot there, but a flood took out the resorts and they never rebuilt, so it’s just kind of there and is a ticking time bomb (it’s an interesting subject if you want to go down a rabbit hole).
Eating and Other Things
One thing you can do in the valley when not at the festival is visit the aforementioned Salton Sea. There’s Salvation Mountain nearby that’s a great Insta spot, and if you want to see what Burning Man would be like if it wasn’t cosplay and year round, there’s Slab City, an old USMC base where the only things left are slabs, with a community that kind of just operates outside of the law. Folks with nice RV’s go there because they can park for free, mixed in with squatters who just live there for free. It’s definitely an interesting place.
If you are into pretty much the exact opposite of squatting in beautiful desolation, there’s El Paseo in Palm Desert, also known as the Rodeo Drive of the desert, complete with the occasional Bugatti and plenty of filler. That said, you don’t have to be an ostentation enthusiast to get something there. Wilma and Frieda’s has one of the best brunches you’ll have anywhere (just be prepared to wait) and while I’ll admit that I was a bit hesitant to go to a restaurant that’s branded after our dad’s favorite shirt, Tommy Bahamas is actually really good (I just lost all my cred from going to the first Coachella.). There’s a lot of good dining on the El Paseo strip that are local restaurants with a variety of price points, so don’t let the Bugatti and rhinoplasty scare you away.
One of the randomly nice things about living in a vacation destination that has a high number of New York winter breakers, is good New York style deli restaurants. There's Manhattan in the Desert on the eastern border of Palm Springs, as well as Sherman's Deli in Palm Desert and Palm Springs.
If you want to get further away from the festival all the way back to Palm Springs, you can’t really go wrong with any of the restaurants there, and like Palm Desert, there’s mostly local dining options. Lulu’s is great, as is Las Consuelas, but if you really want a chain restaurant, we have those too, but I’ll let you and your Google machine find them for yourselves.
Closer to the festival you have options in La Quinta. Old town La Quinta is a great little walkable area also full of local shops and restaurants. A couple of favorites are Roadrunner Cafe and Stuft. Both are reasonably priced and have great options.
Lastly, one spot I want to call out in Indio is TKB Bakery a sandwich shop that has the distinction of being Yelp's number 1 rated restaurant in the country in 2018, but unlike Pabst Blue Ribbon which has been running off that blue ribbon since 1893, it's actually good.
There’s a ton of hiking and golf in the area, but it’s my guess that if you’re going to the festivals you don’t want to do either.
Sleep
As far as where to stay, don't camp, I mean, you can, but if you're like over the age of 25, c'mon, it's the desert, sleep in a structure. The festival has shuttles throughout the valley with places to park, but remember, the valley is big. If you stay in Palm Springs, a couple hours of your day is going to be getting to the polo grounds and back. Palm Desert is in the middle of the valley, but a shuttle from Palm Desert is still going to take you about thirty minutes to get to the festival. Your best bets are Indio and La Quinta, but both cities, along with most of the valley has cracked down on short term vacation rentals, so if you know you’re going next year, you may want to book your place now even before seeing next year’s lineup.
Good luck at Stagecoach, and if you’re annoyed we didn’t publish this before Coachella, there’s always next year.
