After a leisurely breakfast, we’ll head out into the High Desert. Our first stop is the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Museum, a sprawling, ten-acre art-scape where the iconic visual artist and sculptor resided and created massive assemblage pieces for the final 15 years of his life. On this docent-led tour, we’ll glimpse over one hundred massive sculptures and installations in various states of nature-induced decay, and learn about Purifoy’s life and work. Later, we’ll drop by Art Queen, a highly eclectic art emporium home to the World Famous Crochet Museum, where you’ll find a yarn likeness of Humpty Dumpty and a curious choir of particularly plush poodles—among other crocheted curios. After lunch at an artists’ residency, we’ll visit artist Andrea Zittel’s ongoing experiment in living, where she examines the day-to-day of life and questions what gives it meaning. In the evening, we’ll immerse ourselves in a soothing sound bath at The Integratron before heading to a beloved local haunt for dinner and drinks.

We’ll grab a hearty breakfast at a local cafe, then head to Joshua Tree National Park. We’ll hike out to Samuelson’s Rocks, a cluster of boulders onto which a mysterious, storied figure scribed several philosophical ponderings. From there, we’ll journey out of the Mojave and into the Colorado Desert, pausing to admire the Cholla Garden, filled with deceptively dainty-looking cholla cacti, infamous for catching the unsuspecting passersby off-guard with its falling spines. (We’ll keep our distance!) Then, we’ll hit a taco joint in Coachella for lunch before visiting a few artist installations on the shores of the slowly dying Salton Sea—an accidental body of water created when failed irrigation canals brought water from the Colorado River and Rockies into an empty basin. We’ll learn about what’s happening as it becomes increasingly salty, and efforts to restore the saline lake’s ecosystem. We’ll then head up to Salvation Mountain, a colorful mound made of adobe, straw, and paint—and a bright testament to Leonard Knight’s imagination. After all that walking, we’ll head to downtown Palm Springs and enjoy a farewell feast together.

After saying goodbye to your fellow travelers, head to the airport, or on to your next destination. If you’re not yet ready to desert the desert, stay and play in Palm Springs or arrange for further excursions in the Mojave Desert. We’d be more than happy to provide recommendations for places to stay and things to do!