Salton City & West Shore

Developers laid out thousands of lots here in the 1950s and 60s expecting a desert Riviera. The infrastructure went in; the buyers largely did not come. What remains is a landscape of empty cul-de-sacs running into creosote, a marina slowly returning to playa, and long views across the water to the Chocolate Mountains. Birders come for the pelicans and shorebirds that mass along this shoreline in winter; photographers come for the light. Services are thin but real: a gas station, a couple of markets and a small casino make this the most practical overnight base on the sea itself.