“Palm Springs, California, became one of the country’s premier vacation destinations in the 1930s when movie stars from nearby Los Angeles began flocking there for weekends in the salutary sunshine and pristine desert air.
Before that, the area had already been populated for thousands of years by the native Cahuilla people, who settled in what is now Palm Springs. They hunted and foraged throughout the fertile region and named it Sec-he, or boiling water, after the plentiful mineral hot springs bubbling beneath the earth’s crust.
Travelers will soon be able to visit the Cahuilla nation’s new Agua Caliente Cultural Plaza right in downtown Palm Springs, which comprises a museum and wellness facilities that draw upon those same healing waters. These days, the area also offers plenty of outdoor leisure activities — including hiking, golf and tennis — to keep visitors busy.
When you’re driving through the Coachella Valley — a collection of several smaller cities and towns bordered by the jagged San Jacinto Mountains — you’ll see everything from full-service hotels to casual roadside motels along the area’s palm-fringed boulevards….”
