To see — to really see — Palm Springs, you can be your own guide. In your own car. You can be informed and knowledgeable. Through this book, I will escort you all over this famous resort town. You will not just be going sightseeing; you will learn about the history and importance of the sites you are seeing.

I am a tour guide who lives full-time in Palm Springs. I have been giving tours since residing here in 2018 and even owned my own tour company. I’m also a lifelong newspaper and magazine journalist. As a veteran journalist, I believe in truth, accuracy and research. For every site, I will tell you its location, history and importance. Some descriptions are short; others are essays. Many are sites that only locals know about. Each is accompanied by images.

This book is not about trendy places to eat, drink or party. It goes right to the heart of Palm Springs. With a few exceptions, all the sites in this book are free to visit and to look at. You can easily see them from your car window and, in most cases, you can get out of your car for a closer look. I’ve confined most every site to Palm Springs city limits.

Fewer and fewer tourists today know of any of the great stars who once lived here. Even though Palm Springs is not the celebrity playground it once was, it is home to their ever-present spirits. Many of our streets and highways are named after those glamorous stars. Once when I asked for directions, I was told, “Take Bob Hope to Frank Sinatra, cross Gerald Ford and Ginger Rogers, but if you hit Dinah Shore, you’ve gone too far.”

The most noted stars of Palm Springs today are our architects, both living and deceased. Since the early years of the 20th century architects, designers and builders, have been drawn to Palm Springs to set their imaginations free on this sandy canvas. I was privileged to interview several for this book. We are, after all, the modernism capital of the world.

When I give tours by van, bus or foot, I’ve limited time to talk about our visionary pioneers, especially the strong women, feminists before their time. Women who found their way here could shape their own destinies, dream big, fly airplanes, ride with the Indians. In the 1950s, the Agua Caliente Band of the Cahuilla Indians had a five-member, all-woman tribal council, a first in America. Most tourists are surprised to learn that half of our 94.68 square miles is tribal land. The Agua Caliente have called Palm Springs home for thousands of years. Our canyons and mountains are sacred ground.

I’ve included personal observations about the sites and people who live here. First off, those who stay through the summer are called “desert rats.” I am in that exclusive company. I tell a few show-biz stories, too. Indulge me.

Just know that when you take this book in your car, you are taking me along, too.