Joshua Tree Day Trip from Palm Springs: A Perfect Desert Escape

Photo by Toby J Morris

Looking for the most picturesque Joshua Tree day trip from Palm Springs with the least amount of driving? Take a cue from savvy locals and head up to the west entrance of Joshua Tree National Park. The park spans nearly 800,000 acres, but some of its most iconic and photogenic landscapes like towering boulder fields and sculptural Joshua trees are concentrated just minutes inside this entrance.

The best part? If you follow our driving route, you can explore the park’s most scenic areas, stop for a little lunch and shopping, and still make it back to Descanso by happy hour.

Best Driving Route from Palm Springs to Joshua Tree National Park

Your adventure begins with a scenic drive north on Highway 62 toward the high desert. Following our map, you’ll pass through the vast field of wind turbines at San Gorgino Pass and then the landscape shifts to the wide open vistas of the Mojave desert. In less than 45–50 minutes you’ll reach the small community of Joshua Tree Village. Follow the signs directing you to Park Boulevard and Joshua Tree National Park Visitor Center.

Unless you need to use the facilities, you can continue past the small visitor center to the park’s West Entrance booth. As of this writing, the cost to enter the park is $30 per vehicle (no cash accepted). Once inside the park, you won’t find any food or even drinking water, so make sure to fill up those water bottles!

Hidden Valley: Joshua Tree’s Boulder Wonderland

Time to slow down and enjoy the scenery. About 20-minutes into the park, Hidden Valley is an essential stop on any Joshua Tree day trip. Here, enormous piles of granite boulders rise from the desert floor creating an enclosed bowl-shaped valley while Joshua trees twist and branch between the rocks. The scenery feels both rugged and other-worldly.

Make sure to spend 10 minutes or so walking the loop trail here to experience some of the park’s most amazing photo opportunities (the entire loop takes 30-60 minutes to complete). It’s easy to see why rock climbers and photographers love this spot.

Cap Rock: Desert Sculpture Garden

Back in your car, continue a few minutes further on Park Boulevard to Cap Rock. Often less busy than Hidden Valley, Cap Rock features dramatically stacked rock formations backed by long desert sight lines and surreal Joshua trees spaced out across the landscape. The short 0.3-mile loop around the rock formation makes it easy to explore without committing to a longer hike. This is one of the park’s best locations for capturing technicolor sunset images.

Ryan Mountain: Big Views, Minimal Effort

If you want to add one more stop inside the park, travel another 10 minutes past Cap Rock to the Ryan Mountain trailhead. This is one of the most prominent peaks in the park, and the parking area itself has great Joshua tree clusters. The trail here is longer and uphill, but if you walk just 5-10 minutes you’ll be rewarded with expansive, wide open views over the park and some of the boulder fields you explored earlier.

At this point, you can choose to explore more sites within the park or head back out to the West Entrance.

Joshua Tree Village & Yucca Valley

If you’re not in a hurry to return to Palm Springs, the communities of Joshua Tree Village and Yucca Valley both offer a great mix of casual dining and hipster-approved shopping for curated vintage, desert-modern home goods, crystals and more. There’s a great directory on the Visit Joshua Tree website, but some of our favorites include Joshua Tree Coffee (awesome beans), Tiny Pony Tavern (funky & artsy), The Copper Room (retro airport vibes), and La Copine (foodie destination a little further north, reservations recommended).

Also, if you’re interested in outsider art and roadside attractions, the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Desert Art Museum and the World Famous Crochet Museum make for entertaining detours.

Back to Descanso Resort

Once you’re done exploring the top sights at Joshua Tree, it’s an easy drive back to Descanso where you’ll find the pool and courtyard waiting. Time for a swim!