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 assemblage pieces for the final 15 years of his life. On this docent-led tour, we’ll learn about Purifoy’s life and work, glimpsing over 100 massive sculptures and installations in various states of nature-induced decay. Later we’ll drop by Art Queen, an eclectic art emporium home to the World Famous Crochet Museum. Here, we'll encounter a yarn likeness of Humpty Dumpty and a curious choir of particularly plush poodles among countless 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 covered in mysterious inscriptions of philosophical musings. From there, we’ll journey out of the Mojave and into the Colorado Desert. We'll pause to admire the Cholla Garden, filled with deceptively dainty-looking cholla cacti infamous for catching the unsuspecting passersby off guard with their falling spines. (We’ll keep our distance!) After lunch at a taco joint in Coachella, we'll visit the 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 discover what's happening to the increasingly salty lake, and learn about efforts to restore its ecosystem. We’ll then head up to Salvation Mountain, a mound made of adobe, straw, and paint that serves as a bright testament to artist 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, stick around 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!