This is the Palm Springs & the Deserts chapter from Lonely Planet’s California guidebook.

Weathered volcanic peaks, singing sand dunes and palm oases have lured prospectors and miners, artists, visionaries and wanderers to the California desert for years. And through it all threads iconic Route 66, still lined with moodily rusting roadside relics.

• ascend through five distinct life zones in less than 15 minutes aboard the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway
• maps
• hunt rare elephant trees and scramble around the wind caves of vast Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
• transportation
• restaurants & accommodation
• hop around smooth, big-shouldered boulders in the Hidden Valley at Joshua Tree National Park

Coverage includes: Palm Springs & the Coachella Valley, Joshua Tree National Park, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park & around, Julian, Salton Sea, Barstow, Needles, Mojave National Preserve & around, Death Valley National Park & around, Upper Mojave Desert, Lancaster-Palmdale, Mojave, Boron, Ridgecrest, Trona Pinnacles, Randsburg and Las Vegas.