Question for anyone familiar with Palm Springs California- what would you want to tell anyone considering moving there?

All I know is…it’s near Joshua Tree, which is really a playground for adults. The rock climbing there is amazing.

Take a tent to live in, since you will be not able to afford a house.

Take plenty of money

Take plenty of money

Take plenty of money

It’s really freakin’ hot.

Prepare yourself for some extreme heat. It’s not unusual for summer temperatures there to be over 110 degrees.

Indio is nearby and a lot more affordable. You might also look at Bermuda Dunes, Indian Wells, and La Quinta. It’s a little newer than Palm Springs.
Everyone has AC so you will acclimate to the weather. You just spend a lot of time indoors in the summertime and spend lots of weekends in LA.

A good friend of mine lives there. She says:
It’s very expensive to live there, not only real estate, but food, transportation, utilities and all other household related expenses.

The weather is very extreme, so be prepared to spend a lot of time indoors in climate controlled conditions. Climate controlled means extra expense in public locations as well as your own personal space.

Lots of old movie stars move there. Expect the local economy to compensate.

Don’t. It’s full of old people who drive badly and in the summer it is always over 100°. It’s the desert. Don’t let the money and pools fool you.

I’ll add some more details to help, my inquiry may have been too general.

1) I like hot weather,it is not a problem for me. Only cold and humidity make me uncomfortable

2) Expense is not a major issue, I expect to pay for quality.

3) I’m already older and if I don’t have to drive, I won’t- so long as public Transportation is well-maintained.

4) I don’t swim, so pools don’t interest me- neither does golf or shuffleboard. I like Art,Music,Dancing,Dining,& occasional shopping.-to name a few basics.

5) I heard P.S. is GLBT-friendly and that is what I expect to find for neighbors. I will not tolerate bigots.

6) I have some friends in L.A. I can visit- but I want to live away from all the crime and urban congestion- that is 1 reason why I’m looking-into P.S.

7) For my own health, I’d like to live somewhere I can be active and out of the home year-round, preferably outdoors as much as possible, another reason I am looking at P.S.

Hopefully, this helps provide a clearer picture of what I am looking for in actual information.

My grandparents used to live further out in the desert, but we used to go into Palm Springs all the time and I LOVE it.

The main thing you need to know is that it gets ridiculously hot during the summer months. My grandparents used to take a fifth wheel up to Lake Hemet (about an a 45 minute drive up into the mountains from PS) during the summer months. Otherwise you literally have to stay inside and just going from your car to a store, and then getting back into a hot car in 115 degrees weather can be a killer. So, plan to live someplace else during the summer months. A good place to go, is straight up the mountain to Idyllwild.

The other thing is that the cost of living in California, especially in a resort town such as PS, is very high.

On the plus side, it’s gorgeous, full of wonderful restaurants, is very gay friendly and dog friendly (lots of cafes let you bring your dog to it’s outside seating areas) wonderful Hiking in the desert just on the outskirts of town as well as up in the San Jacinto Mts. that you can access by a really fun trip in the Palm Springs Aerial Tram. It’s often 20 degrees cooler at the top of the mountain than it is down in the desert. Plus you get warm sunny, warm weather most of the time during Spring, Fall and Winter and if you like snow, there is always snow on the mountain, which you can visit, during late fall through late spring.

If you love mid century modern design, PS is the place for you. The place is loaded up on this kind of architecture and they just recently had their Mid Century Modern Festival, which includes home tours and art shows all over town featuring mid century designs in furniture and art.

They also have a very nice theater/entertainment atmosphere. You will love the McCallum Theater for the Performing Arts which is technically in Palm Desert (Palm Springs, Cathedral City and Palm Desert are all pretty much connected now). And don’t forget about the Palm Springs Follies and there’s lots of small bars and restaurants that feature everything from rock and roll to piano bar music.

The downtown area still has a lot of the old Hollywood Charm plus there is shopping galore.

If you like to camp in the desert, you are about an hour’s drive from Joshua Tree and if you simply enjoy beautiful scenery, don’t forget about the Chocolate Mountains and the Salton Sea and the Windmills

Oh, and don’t forget about the Casinos. They’re always fun for a little bit of gambling, eating at the buffet and hearing live music.

Course you’ll want to visit Hadley’s Fruit Orchard in Cabazon, which is right next to the giant Dinosaurs and Shield’s Date Garden

Palm Springs also boasts a very nice Art Museum and a little further out in Palm Desert is the Living Desert and Botanical Garden and don’t forget about the Coachella Music Festival which is held at the same place where the annual Indio Date Festival occurs.

You can probably tell that I have an incredible fondness for Palm Springs LOL! Just check out this landscape and this Nightscape and this Snowy Scene from the top of San Jacinto looking down into the warm sunny desert. What’s not to love?

HOT HOT! Joshua Tree is wonderful to visit, esp. in spring when there are desert flowers.

@gottamakeart You gave more info while I was crafting my response LOL. Sorry it took me so long, but I LOVE Palm Springs.

Here is some info about the Public Transportation in PS. Sounds pretty reasonable. I’ve also seen taxis all over the place and it would probably be pretty reasonable since the downtown area isn’t more than 2 miles long. I’ve never had much problem driving in the downtown area, but I hear the traffic can be pretty bad during the Modern Festival.

The art scene is fantastic, not only with the museum, but there are tons of art galleries all over the place, not just in downtown PS, but also in Palm Desert and La Quinta, and not to mention up the mountain in Idyllwild.

Palm Springs has a huge GLBT population and most of the businesses cater directly to them. During the 70’s PS was mostly a rowdy place where drunken college students would go for spring break. After many years of troublemaking from these folks, Sonny Bono, who was the mayor for awhile, came in and pretty much cleaned up all of that mess and then turned it into a haven for the GLBT community. So it’s safe and clean and fun, with a mixture of young and old. They have some resort hotels that are specifically for gay couples, but pretty much every business in town happily accomodates gay folks and you can be out and about in public and no one will give you any trouble.

There are tons of fabulous restaurants in PS. You can get just about anything from Thai, to Indian to high end steak houses, to inexpensive diner style breakfast joints and vegetarian food, and everything in between. The casinos have some pretty tasty buffets too.

One of my favorite Mexican restaurants is Las Casuelas Terraza the food is delicious and this particular restaurant has an extensive vegetarian menu in addition to the traditional favorites. My favorite breakfast place is Elmer’s they have this crazy French toast thingee with hazelnut cream that makes me salivate just thinking about it. Another place that I love for breakfast is Nature’s Health Food & Cafe they have vegan and vegetarian breakfasts that are super yummy! I’ve never been to Melvyn’s but this place is very famous for being one of the hangouts for Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack back in the day. Sounds like the food is pretty good too. Tyler’s Burgers is really tasty and a fun people watching hangout. The tiny kitchen was once home to the Greyhound Bus depot in 1936. This Restaurant Website has a lot of great listings for places to eat.

You might like the Palm Springs Village Fest which is a street fair that is held every Thursday night.

And the warm/hot weather is always of the dry variety. Not any humidity to worry about. It does rain occasionally, but it’s usually only a couple of days a year.

The Palm Springs Library is also very nice and always has some type of event or classes going on.

The Palm Springs Visitor’s Guide Site also has tons of info about activities and festivals and all sorts of other good things. And don’t forget to go to the actual Visitor’s Center at the entrance to the Palm Springs Aerial Tram. The folks that work there are very friendly and helpful and can give you free maps and directions to wherever you want to go.

If you have any fleeting interest in Elvis, or just appreciate mid century architecture, you need to visit the Elvis Honeymoon Hideaway House

I have yet to visit the Frank Sinatra House but it’s supposed to be very cool.

Now if you need a cool and tasty treat, you need to go to Palm Springs Fudge and Chocolates for a date shake. Their’s is the best, and I’ve had them all over the Coachella Valley. The difference between theirs and others is that they used liquid pureed dates instead of the dried powdered date sugar. Date shakes are fantastic anywhere you get them, but these are the best! This place is conveniently located smack in the middle of downtown right in front of the Palm Springs Historical Society which is another rich source of activities.

La Quinta is another community out there near Palm Springs and Palm Desert, this site for the La Quinta Museum has a lot of info, especially this guide to public art.

And for peace of mind there are 2 good hospitals right there in Palm Springs. The Eisenhower Medical Center and the Desert Regional Medical Center

Even though Palm Springs is only 2 hours from both Los Angeles and San Diego, you can always fly there from the Palm Springs Airport and they have several major airlines that fly in and out, so you can pretty much go anywhere.

OK, I’ll stop tooting this horn, at least for now LOL.

Don’t count on public transport in palm springs. Only the homeless or very poor use it. Everyone has a car.
I suggest you visit in the summer. Resort prices will be cheap and you can get a feel for the worst weather. It’s really not that bad once you acclimate. The traffic problem is just that people always drive slower in the fast lane than the slow lane. It can be frustrating unless you make a joke out of it like we did when we lived there.

UPDATE: I visited the area about 2 weeks ago, and I LOVED it! Didn’t get to see quite everything.

I visited Joshua Tree National Park, took in the sights in Downtown Palm Springs, including one of the art museums- also saw the 30ft tall Marilyn Monroe statue, which is a travelling display (will be moving on in 2013) Looked at some homes for sale in the “Cove” area of Cathedral City- very nice -they were up a hillside and many of them had great views. Found a terrific Diner/Bakery/Deli called “Manhattans” Outside of Rancho Mirage on the way to P.S. just off the 111. I went there THREE times during my trip.

The weather got into the high 80’s- which still felt cool to me. Didn’t have any problems with driving- although parking was tricky on the weekend. I honestly can’t wait to go back and look around some more.

Once I’m ready to move there, the plan is to RENT 1st to make sure I like the neighborhood. Still not sure about buying a condo or a modest 1 level open-concept with a backyard. Any input on that decision might be helpful.

I’d like room for out-of-town guests, some privacy, room to entertain (like a private patio)- didn’t quite see all that in many of the condo offerings- but upkeep on a house can be money and time -consuming, especially there I’m sure.

I’d call it a successful first visit- there was planty of photos, and I gathered a lot of info everywhere I went.

That’s great, but it is really absolutely nothing like the summers. It is heavenly right now. There is a big difference between 80 and 112. I would rent for a year just so you get through an entire summer before you make that big purchase commitment.

I agree with @Judi, that you should definitely rent a place in the summer. It gets really hot there!

If you want to get a better idea of what is available, check out this website:http://www.californiamoves.com/

You can type in the name of the cities that you are interested, so put in Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Cathedral City and any others that you might consider (Indio, Desert Hot Springs, Yucca Valley etc.) then you select what type(s) of homes you are looking for such as single family, condo, rental etc. Then you put in a minumum price and a maximum price that you are willing to spend. Then you select the number of bedrooms and bathrooms you want.

Don’t worry, you are under no obligations, this is just a search site so you can look at homes.

Before you push the bright orange “search” button, click on the “more options” line right underneath the search button. That will give you some other options such as if you want to only look at single story houses, or only want to look at 2 story houses. Then there’s some other options such as looking at only houses that have recently been put on the market within the last 1 to 7 days, otherwise you can look at everything (but you will probably see a bunch of properties that have a “sale pending” notice on them, but it will still give you a good idea of the types of homes that are available and how much they cost, complete with photos).

If you see a few homes that you like, know that in this economy, houses are selling like hot cakes here in California, so if you want to look, make sure you can go out there immediately and look and possibly make a decision (although I definitely think you should choose a rental for now, until you decide whether you can handle the summer weather out there).

The reason I say that you need to go immediately, if you see something you like (you should probably get yourself a realtor who will be representing you that works out of Palm Springs first) is because my relatives who are looking to buy a place in my area, Orange County, have had houses being sold out from under them as they were looking at them during the open house! Some of the houses were only on the market for 2 days!

Also, before you even go out there to look at a place, make sure you have your financial eggs all in a row. Get yourself pre-approved for a loan, and make sure that you get that updated. I think those pre-approvals are only good for 30 to 90 days (ask your lender). If you see something you like, you will most likely have to put an offer in, that day, otherwise the next day that place will be sold. I know, yikes! I’ve just been going through this whole process with my relatives and they were not prepared.

I think I may have mentioned this before, but my Grandparents (when they were still alive) lived over in Desert Hot Springs, I wouldn’t recommend moving there, because the wind blows like crazy and you’ll get sand damage to your car, plus it’s kind of small and run down, although they do have some wonderful restored mid-century hotel spas over there. But what I mostly wanted to tell you was that they never stayed in the desert during the summer, because it was simply too hot. They had a trailer that they would take to Lake Hemet and stay there for 2 months and then they would travel for the third month.

You might want to consider staying somewhere else during the summer months, too, like just up above in Idyllwild : )

Good luck with your search and your potential move! I love Palm Springs!