What’s New in Queer Palm Springs

Queer travelers have long found a special home in Palm Springs, southern California’s iconic desert paradise. Framed by the dramatic San Jacinto mountains, the city (and the rest of the surrounding Coachella Valley) has blossomed into a haven for LGBTQ retirees, making a visit here seem a bit like a parallel universe, where queer couples practically outnumber straight ones.

There’s always so much to see and do here, but on a recent visit, here’s some of what we saw that was new—or new to us, longtime visitors to the city.

Queer Palm Springs: Art blooms in the desert

The Palm Springs Art Museum started an initiative in 2023 called Q+, which focuses on the work of LGBTQ artists. David Evans Frantz was brought on as a dedicated curator at large, and there is now a dedicated gallery for these works, right near the front entrance. There is an ongoing exhibition called Tender Swagger: Works by LGBTQ+ Artists from the Collection, which includes fascinating works by artists such as Linda Besemer, Frank Moore, RF Alvarez, Brett Reichman, and Robert Giard.

Upcoming programming for Q+ are a November 6th event with Xina Xurner, a November 15th artist talk and meet-and-greet with Nick Cave (who is receiving an award), and a new exhibit opening March 28, 2026, called Queer Arcana: Art, Magic and Spirit.

A unique spa experience

The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians opened The Spa at Séc-he right next to their Agua Caliente Cultural Museum in 2023. Rated the #1 spa in the country for the past two years, the complex is impressive, with regular and mineral bath pools, inside private suites where you can experience the “Taking of the Waters,” a 15-minute soak in mineral-rich waters that have taken 12,000 years to bubble up to the surface. The experience is calming and restorative, as is the spa’s salt rooms and zero gravity chairs.

If you spend a minimum of $200 on a massage or other treatments, you can access the whole spa, including its impressive fitness facility, for the day. The outside pool area also has a fantastic menu of salads, sandwiches, entrees, and smoothies. And don’t miss touring the adjoining museum, which is a thoughtfully told history of this local tribe, the wrongs that were done to them over the past few centuries, and how they have been resilient and strong as they look toward their future.

Modernism Week tour

Palm Springs’ annual Modernism Week is held each February, with some 450 events over about 11 days. It has grown in popularity to such an extent that they’ve added more weeks to the calendar. Now, smaller and shorter Modernism Weeks with 40 or so events occur each October (and sometimes in May) for four to five days. One of the big draws are the “Super Duper Double Decker Bus Tours,” which are 2.5 hours in length, a great deal of fun, and quite informative.

We were lucky to have the famous Charles Phoenix as our tour guide, adding to the fabulousity and the flamboyance. We saw many neighborhoods in the city, such as Las Palmas, Vista Las Palmas, Movie Colony, Sunrise Park, Twin Palms, Indian Canyons, Canyon View Estates, and the Tennis Club. We stopped and crooned at homes once belonging to celebrities such as Frank Sinatra and Dinah Shore, and heard about new famous residents, like Leonardo DiCaprio and Barbra Streisand.

Charming stays

The Royal Sun Palm Springs, which was recently renovated, is one of the city’s many hotels (they frown on using the work motel here) that were born in the mid 1900s and have been reborn into trendy, funky, comfortable properties. This 66-room retreat features wonderful mountain views, a hopping pool scene, comfortable beds, and handsomely furnished guestrooms. There’s a mid-century modern charm that pervades the hotel, forcing you to relax and not think about those 2025-era problems back home.

Queer Palm Springs: Drag & Fly Tours

This popular local tour, hosted by a drag queen, uses a brilliantly designed shuttle bus, where two rows of movie theater style seats face sideways, out enormous picture windows. It’s like you’re in a rolling theater, being entertained and informed as the city’s most iconic homes pass by.

Our 90-minute tour featured the lovely and hilarious Rosemary Galore, who gave us tips for successful lip synching. (Don’t know the words? Turn around or mouth words like watermelon or olive juice!) There was bit of lip synching on our tour, but Rosemary mostly focused on telling us the history of the city, the architecture of the Coachella Valley, and the juicy stories from past Hollywood stars who lived here.

We saw lovely homes belonging to Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Dinah Shore, Liberace, and more. In addition to seeing the actual properties, large monitors in the shuttle showed videos of the insides of the homes, a very smart touch. As we cruised through the city, people constantly waved at us, and we felt like we were part of the show, adding to the fun. The tours launched in late 2024 and is launching evening tours, in addition to the daytime ones.

This article originally appeared in TravelPulse.

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