Palm Springs is a small Californian city whose ebb and flow over the years has seen it be a destination for many types of people from retirees to Hollywood A-listers. Now recent reinvigoration has seen another surge in popularity for this desert oasis and it’s all thanks to Downtown. The old Desert Plaza Fashion Mall has given way to brand new hotels, shops and courtyards in a huge $400 million redevelopment of the area. The showstopper is the seven-story Kimpton Rowan Palm Springs hotel. From its rooftop pool (on the town’s highest building), you’ll get panoramic views of the San Jacinto Mountains and the Coachella Valley. The stylish boutique hotels serve as anchors to the chic stores, coffee shops, restaurants, wellness centers and spas that now give visitors so much more to do than laze around by the pool. 

The city has long been a hotspot for Hollywood hideouts. The glamorous getaway that saw the likes of Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor and Bob Hope party through the 50s and 60s, now welcomes millennials into its hip and fresh Downtown. Tour the area, from Palm Springs Stadium to Palm Canyon Drive and all the museums, theatres, galleries, golf courses – you name it – in between. It is the dynamic Downtown that has set the tone for the new capital of cool, rivalling Palm Springs’ neighbors: Los Angeles and Las Vegas. 

It’s no secret that poolside at Palm Springs is the ultimate Californian vacation. Now, with the Downtown area thriving, it’s the place to be when the Palm Springs International Film Festival or Modernism Week rolls into town – or if you’re just after a Starbucks in what has become a very instagrammable city.