Which Palm Springs Architecture Tour Is Right For You?

There are cities you can understand perfectly well on your own. You walk around, take a few photos, check Google maps, and eventually arrive at the conclusion that there is a Starbucks where you expected one.

Palm Springs is not quite like that.

The city looks deceptively easy. Palm trees. Mountains. Pretty much one street, Palm Canyon Drive. But behind the postcard is one of the world’s great concentrations of mid-century modern architecture — and architecture here is never really just architecture. It’s a lens to understand Palm Springs.

Fortunately, you don’t have to figure all of this out yourself. There are tours. Lots of tours. A disclosure before we start: I have a couple of horses in this race. I guide for Palm Springs Celebrity Tours and I’m the guide and co-owner of Artisan Food Tours.

But I’m going to do my best to behave like a journalist. With just a dash of Hunter S. Thompson for good measure. Let’s dive in.

Palm Springs Mod Squad: an intimate, highly personal tour

Kurt Cyr of The Mod Squad. Photo courtesy of Kurt Cyr

This is the first tour I did in town. It was 2014, well before I became a guide. And here I am now, a guide in Palm Springs who occasionally even gets to write about this cool stuff. Is there a connection?

Kurt Cyr’s Mod Squad is the architecture tour for people who look at a Palm Springs house and immediately want to know who designed it, why the roof does that, and whether the architect had been drinking. The answer, occasionally, may be yes.

The Mod Squad tours are deliberately small. The van seats just five people, creating an experience that feels less like a conventional sightseeing tour and more like being driven around town by a highly engaging friend who happens to have a deep and enthusiastic understanding of Desert Modernism. 

The Essential Palm Springs Tour runs about 90 minutes and focuses on six architects who helped make Palm Springs what it is: William F. Cody, Albert Frey, Hugh Kaptur, William Krisel, E. Stewart Williams, and Donald Wexler. And if looking at houses from the street leaves you feeling slightly like a burglar with excellent taste, The Mod Squad also offers an Interior Tour that takes guests inside midcentury homes. 

There is even a Martini & MCM Architecture Tour, which combines architecture with Rat Pack history and concludes with the obvious Palm Springs response to looking at houses for 90 minutes: a martini. At a legendary Palm Springs establishment with major Rat Pack cred: Melvyn’s. Yes, please.  

Best for: people who want a small group with a personable guide and a quick but substantive introduction to Desert Modernism. 760-469-9265 

The Modern Tour: if you want the deep dive

Mid-century modern homes are everywhere in Palm Springs. Photo: Erin Hervey on Unsplash

The Modern Tour takes a somewhat more scholarly approach. It was founded by historian and author Michael Stern, whose work includes the book Julius Shulman: Palm Springs and a documentary about the legendary architectural photographer. The company describes itself as Palm Springs’ oldest architectural tour operator and the official tour of the Palm Springs Art Museum Architecture + Design Center.

This is the choice for the visitor who doesn’t merely want to see a mid-century house but wants to understand its importance. The emphasis is on architecture and design history, with the city’s houses and buildings placed in the larger story of postwar modernism.

The Modern Tour also offers interior access, so you can see how these homes work from the inside. A Palm Springs modernist house can look almost austere from the outside. Inside, the relationship between light, glass, roof, shade, breeze, and landscape suddenly makes much more sense.

Best for: serious architecture and design enthusiasts. 760-904-0904

PS Architecture Tours: if you want the guide to be your very enthusiastic, architecture obsessed friend

The Ingleside Estate is one of Palm Springs’ oldest hotels in operation, dating back to the 1930s. Photo courtesy of Ingleside Estate

PS Architecture Tours is the long-running operation of Trevor O’Donnell, a Palm Springs architecture and history buff who has been leading tours here for nearly 15 years.

Trevor’s particular strength is storytelling. His tours move through Palm Springs neighborhoods, while connecting houses to their architects, builders, and celebrity clients. You’ll begin to see how one architect influenced another, how friendships, rivalries and jealousies developed, how the builders changed the scale of the city, and how the desert itself shaped the architecture.

Best for: visitors who want a highly knowledgeable guide, history and architecture, and a conversational experience. 323-578-6025

Modern Tours Palm Springs: if you like to do things at your own speed

Self-guided tours are even better in a vintage car. Photo courtesy of Visit Palm Springs

There is another option for people who don’t particularly enjoy being told where to be at 10 in the morning. Modern Tours Palm Springs offers audio-guided, self-driving architecture tours. 

Best for: cost-conscious, commitment-phobic architecture fans with a car.

The Self-Guided Architecture Route: if you don’t want a tour at all

Visit Palm Springs, the city visitor’s bureau, offers a free online map highlighting mid-century architecture stops, and the Palm Springs Modern Committee sells an app for $4.99 and a handy map for $5. Mid-century minimalism: just you, your map, and Palm Springs. 

Best for: budget minded, architecture-curious visitors

The best of the rest

Touring Palm Springs’ iconic windmills is one way to spend a vacation day. Photo courtesy of Visit Palm Springs

Here’s the takeaway: architecture is a great way to understand Palm Springs. If you’re staying for a few days, you may want to see the city from a different angle — or several of them. Fortunately, Palm Springs has a tour for just about every interest, appetite, and tolerance for being driven around in a van.

Here are some of the other ways to explore the city:

Celebrity and Hollywood

Palm Springs Celebrity Tours: the longest running tour company in town. Private and semi-private guided celebrity home and architecture small van tours. 760-895-8005  

Drag & Fly Tours Palm Springs: celebrity history, architecture, and local culture delivered as a live drag-hosted show, with comedy, music, and video. 760-227-0199  

Five Star Adventures Tours: private and semi-private tours combining celebrity history and architecture. 760-200-9483, 800-951-9495 

PS Celebrity Home Tours: small-group guided electric golf-cart tours. 657-289-9253 

Food and Drink

Artisan Food Tours: new elevated small-group, owner-guided culinary walking tours with five restaurant and shop experiences, including wine and cocktails. 760-239-7641  

Desert Tasty Tours: fun and casual narrated walking food tours with four to six tasting stops by a well established company with strong reviews. 760-565-2262  

Magic Cart: small group locally operated golf cart tours with several great food and drink stops. 562-537-1627 

Lip Smacking Food Tours: Las Vegas-based operator offering VIP corporate oriented events at three restaurants included. 888-681-4388   

Secret Food Tours: an international tour operator based in England and offering local food tours in Palm Springs. 

Covered Wagon Tours: Old West experience, including chuckwagon BBQ dinner option. 760-347-2161 

History

Palm Springs Historical Society: docent-led walking and biking tours. 

Urban Palm Springs: Black history tours. An overlooked side of Palm Springs history. 760-641-4652  

Desert, Nature, and Adventure

Desert Adventures Red Jeep Tours: naturalist-guided Jeep excursions into desert landscapes. 760-324-5337 

Big Wheel Tours: bike and e-bike adventures. 760-548-0500 

Adventure Hummer Tours: off-road desert excursions by Hummer and Jeep. 760-760-8687 

Palm Springs Windmill Tours: a close-up look at wind turbines. 800-531-5834 

Social Cycle: bicycle tour accommodating your party crew. 619-846-9436

The Mic Bike: a social bicycle tour, plus karaoke. 877-642-2453

So…which tour should you take?

Take a tour…or two…in Palm Springs. Photo courtesy of Visit Palm Springs

That depends on which Palm Springs you came for. As you can see, there are options. 

And if you are staying for a few days, or really want to understand this unique place, take more than one.

Palm Springs has never been just one thing. It is architecture, Hollywood, food, desert, and history, all snuggled up next to the San Jacinto Mountains. Tour accordingly. And whatever you decide, enjoy yourself. This place was built for that.