In a city that didn’t always prioritize serious cocktails, Seymour’s might just be Palm Springs’ best bar. Tucked discreetly inside Mr. Lyons, this speakeasy is dimly lit and old school, with vintage portraits lining the walls and black-and-white films flickering behind the bar. Best of all, it works equally well for a low-key date or a late-night hang with friends—especially once you make your way out to the patio for bocce ball in the desert air.

Though there are plenty of can’t miss restaurants in Palm Springs, there’s something inherently cinematic about dinner at Copley’s on Palm Canyon—not least because it occupies the former guesthouse of Cary Grant. Set just off the main strip, the almost-entirely al fresco restaurant is all twinkling candlelight and old school vibes, with tables set beneath the open sky with the mountains hovering in the distance. Still, it’s all convivial and laid-back enough to keep it from feeling too fussy. In the kitchen, chef Andrew Copley draws on a résumé spanning London to Hawaii, with dishes like chicken and lemongrass potstickers and crispy branzino with wasabi.

What to Do

Andreas CanyonPhoto: Christina Pérez

Just minutes from downtown, Andreas Canyon feels like strolling through an ancient desert oasis. The easy, roughly one-mile hike winds alongside Andreas Creek—a rare, year-round water source—creating a lush pocket of shaggy California fan palms and wildflowers that seem almost impossible against the surrounding arid landscape. Once home to the ancestors of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, the canyon still holds traces of that history, including ancient bedrock mortars carved into stone. It’s the perfect loop even on sweltering days: short, shaded, and chill, yet totally magical.

Family-owned since 1938, the one-acre garden is a weird and wonderful collection of cacti and succulents from across the American Southwest and beyond. Founded by a couple who once did landscaping for the likes of everyone from Walt Disney to Bing Crosby, the garden features winding paths that lead past arid biomes of towering agave, spiky cholla, and delicate desert blooms—along with interesting rocks, crystals, fossils, and gold-mining relics—and culminates in a greenhouse “cactarium,” where rare and otherworldly specimens cluster together in sculptural formations. It’s otherworldly and endlessly photogenic.