Downtown Desert Hot Springs

Pierson Boulevard and Palm Drive form the crossroads: a health food store, longstanding Mexican restaurants, a weekly market and the city's civic buildings. Cabot's Pueblo Museum — a hand-built Hopi-inspired pueblo of salvaged materials — sits just north and is the town's one genuine landmark attraction. Downtown itself is not a strolling district, but it is where you stock up before checking into one of the small mineral-water hotels that make this city worth the trip, and the elevation means nights run noticeably cooler than the valley floor.