Am I in Heaven or Just Flying Out of Palm Springs?

The Sunsplashed Airport in the Desert Soars Above the Pack—Even in the Pandemic

If you’re heading to heaven, you really should fly out of Palm Springs.

I offer that line not as a jab at the advanced average age of the Coachella Valley’s retiree-heavy population. Rather, it’s a testament to the warmth and wonder I felt while waiting for a recent flight at Palm Springs International Airport.

Pandemic-era air travel in California is typically a miserable combination of unhappy passengers and unreliable service—except in Palm Springs. There, flying still feels like a miracle.

The airport is small, with fewer than two dozen gates, and easy to …

by Joe Mathews | March 1, 2022

From Bethlehem to Palm Springs, Christmas Belongs in the Desert

During the Holiday Season, Southern California’s Coachella Valley Becomes a Place of Rebirth

by Joe Mathews | December 17, 2018

If you’re looking for the quintessential Christmas experience, there’s only one place you should go: the Southern California desert.

The Coachella Valley is the Golden State’s very own Yuletide capital—which …

Is Slab City, California the Last Free Place in America?

Dwellers of the Desert Community—Both Exiles and Refugees—Are Staging an Experiment in ‘Adaptation and Resistance’

by Charlie Hailey | November 2, 2018

When the alert pinged on my phone, I thought of Austin and his house of wooden pallets. A “wall of dust” roiled toward Slab City and other “impacted locations” in …

The Bedouin People Who Blur the Boundaries of Egyptian Identity

An Indigenous North African Minority Near the Libyan Border Has Often Been Treated Like Foreigners

by Matthew Ellis | July 20, 2018

In November 1940, a group of Bedouins from Egypt’s Western Desert region sent an unusual petition to the Egyptian government. The petition arrived at a time of great turmoil in …

The Next Great California Bridge Should Span the High Desert

Infrastructure Linking Palmdale and Victorville Could Boost L.A.—and All of North America

By Joe Mathews | July 10, 2017

What’s the fastest way to change California?

Assuming you don’t have the power to set off a major earthquake, your best bet would be to connect the two small desert cities …

My Antidote to L.A’s Madness Lies Less Than 100 Miles Outside the City

Finding Peace in a Benedictine Abbey Transplanted From China and Thriving in California’s High Desert

By Paula Starr Sherrin | July 26, 2016

Driven. Rushed. Anxious. These adjectives describe me and many of the nearly 4 million people with whom I share the malls, freeways, and surface streets of Los Angeles. Some days, …

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