My road Trip Los Angeles, California to Phoenix, Arizona
*All work including photos and writing on this page is my own, except the link to the Expedia video, freely available on Youtube.
This is another road trip we hadn't planned until a few weeks beforehand. We had planned to fly direct to Phoenix but nearer the time thought it would be better for us to fly to LA and drive from there. We have been to LA before, so know how bad the traffic can be getting out of LA so didn't believe we could do it in 5 1/2 hours so booked an overnight stay in the Coachella Valley. I am so glad we did, because the two hour journey from LA to Palm Desert took 4 hours!
For this trip make sure you have a good hire car, with working A/C as you will be crossing a desert. We chose an Alamo car as we have never had a problem with their cars. The drive from the Airport to get out of LA did take a long time, but once we were outside LA city limits it was plain sailing. Below wind turbines in the desert in California.
This is another road trip we hadn't planned until a few weeks beforehand. We had planned to fly direct to Phoenix but nearer the time thought it would be better for us to fly to LA and drive from there. We have been to LA before, so know how bad the traffic can be getting out of LA so didn't believe we could do it in 5 1/2 hours so booked an overnight stay in the Coachella Valley. I am so glad we did, because the two hour journey from LA to Palm Desert took 4 hours!
For this trip make sure you have a good hire car, with working A/C as you will be crossing a desert. We chose an Alamo car as we have never had a problem with their cars. The drive from the Airport to get out of LA did take a long time, but once we were outside LA city limits it was plain sailing. Below wind turbines in the desert in California.
Below is the road entering the Coachella valley.
As you come over the mountains into the Coachella valley the temperature starts to rise dramatically. We did this trip in June and it was 24c in LA, but 43C in Palm Desert. The Coachella valley is famous for it's music festival, which is in the town of Indio. It is a valley made up of several towns, the most famous is Palm Springs. The valley is an arid valley with literally nothing around it except desert, mountains and the Joshua Tree National Park.
Palm Springs primarily attracts visitors in the winter from colder climates, wanting an escape to a nice dry and warm climate. With golf courses, tennis clubs and luxury resort hotels, Palm Springs has been attracting presidents, celebrities and foreign dignitaries for many years. Recently it has also become popular in the summer for people on road trips to stop off, generating business all year. The other small towns are now expanding to cater for this influx of road trippers with the cheaper family hotels being built everywhere and more restaurants and services. People are also moving here from other West Coast cities, especially retired people, due to the cost of housing being so much cheaper here than the rest of California.
We chose to stay in the small upmarket resort of Palm Desert, where the whole town looked very new! It was lovely for a night to break the journey and cool off in the small pool. We stayed in the newly built hotel below, Holiday Inn Express, Palm Desert, which was good for one night, close to restaurants. This was the view from the room.
From Palm Springs we took the easy 4 hour drive to Phoenix, well Scottsdale, which is the main resort of Phoenix, where we were planning to stay. There isn't much on the way, although we did stop at one small town to get drinks and fruit, but take plenty of cold drinks with you in the car in a cool bag. Wear sun cream and glasses and even a hat in the summer as it was very hot! It was quite an experience driving through the desert but I must admit a bit scary too at 47c in case you break down in that heat. We did notice that where a car did break down, other cars did stop to help. It is a motorway so you will not be alone on the road. Below are photos of roads in Palm Desert.
Below are views on the road from Palm Desert to Phoenix.
We finally arrived and checked in to our hotel in Scottsdale Phoenix, and jumped straight in the pool!