Palm Springs Self-Guided Driving Audio Tour

149 Reviews | Palm Springs, USA

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2 to 3 hours (approx.)

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Overview

Soak up some sun with this self-guided driving tour of Palm Springs, where movie stars and other big-time celebs have flocked for almost a hundred years to get away from it all. Visit architectural marvels left behind by these eccentric stars, like the opulent Liberace House. Stop outside the gates of Frank Sinatra’s old estate and hear some wild tales about Ol’ Blue Eyes’ time in Palm Springs. And so much more! Plus, this driving tour of Palm Springs will take you to the serene Thousand Palms Oasis Preserve, a desert gem rich in natural beauty.

After booking, check your email to download the separate Audio Tour Guide App by Action, enter your unique password, and access your tour. These steps require good internet/Wi-Fi access. From there, follow the audio instructions and the route.

Buy once, use for one year! Ideal for extended visits and return trips over the next 12 months.

What's Included

Engaging storytelling: Uncover unique tales and thrilling history for a memorable journey!
Perfect narrator: nothing can beat listening to a great voice. Proven with tons of rave reviews!
Offline maps: no signal, no problem! Works perfectly without cellular or wifi.
Comprehensive route and stops: See it all, miss nothing, leave no stone unturned!
Go at your own pace: Start anytime, pause anywhere, enjoy breaks for snacks and photos freely!
Hands-free: audio stories play on their own based on your location. Easy to use!
Great value: purchase per car, not per person. More affordable than bus or guided tours!
Easy-to-use app: download Action’s Tour Guide App onto your phone

Attraction passes, entry tickets, or reservations

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Meeting Location

Meeting point

North Palm Canyon Drive
Palm Springs, CA 92262, USA

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Detailed check-in instructions, including the exact address, are provided with your booking confirmation.

End point

Thousand Palms Canyon Road
California, USA

This tour will end at Thousand Palms Canyon Rd.

What To Expect

Palm Springs Visitor Center (Pass By)

Our tour begins in the parking lot of the Palm Springs Visitor Center at 2901 N Palm Canyon Drive. If you’re not there already, you should head there now. Before we get started, there’s something important you should know about this tour: Palm Springs is bursting with historic celebrity homes, but most of them are hidden behind walls, hedges, or fences.Note: This 22-mile-long tour covers the essentials of Palm Springs in 2-3 hours.Buy once, use for one year! Ideal for extended visits and return trips over the next 12 months.

Liberace House (Pass By)

In just a moment, we’ll have the option to take a detour to see the Kaufmann and Liberace Houses, two of Palm Springs’ most famous homes. The detour takes about five minutes, and I’d recommend it if you’re not in a rush. To visit the houses, turn right onto West Vista Chino ahead. Otherwise, continue straight to skip the detour.⚠️ NOTE: Star Homes may be obscured or partially hidden by gates, shrubs, or private roads. Please do not violate anyone’s privacy during your tour.

Kaufmann House (Pass By)

The Kaufmann Desert House is on our right, beyond that white gate. It’s considered one of the finest examples of mid-century modern architecture in the US! Businessman Edgar Kaufmann owned a successful department store in Pittsburgh. And he absolutely loved architecture. He even had famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright create a home he called Fallingwater in Pennsylvania. So when he decided to build a vacation home here in Palm Springs, he knew he wanted to hire the best. He contracted architect Richard Neutra for the job. Neutra was famous for designing open and adaptable houses with a distinctly modern appearance. And he put all his skills to use for the Kaufmann House.⚠️ NOTE: Star Homes may be obscured or partially hidden by gates, shrubs, or private roads. Please do not violate anyone’s privacy during your tour.

The Movie Colony

We’re driving through the Movie Colony, the neighborhood where many of Hollywood’s darlings moved in the 1900s. Frank Sinatra had a home here. Dinah Shore. Cary Grant. David O. Selznick. Jack Benny. Tony Curtis. They all lived here. The neighborhood owes much of its allure to El Mirador Hotel, which opened in 1928. It had an Olympic-size swimming pool, tennis courts, stables, and a bell tower that became a Palm Springs landmark. In the early days of Hollywood, movie stars would flock to that hotel for a bit of peace and quiet out here in the desert. And once they came here, many didn’t want to leave! So they contracted famous architects like Richard Neutra, Albert Frey, and Donald Wexler to build them permanent houses here.

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Robolights

Once we pass the next intersection, find a spot to pull over and park. Then get out and look for the colorful sculptures peeking out from behind the trees on the corner of East Granvia Valmonte and North Arquilla Road. It’ll be on our right.

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Walk of the Stars Palm Springs

Here, 450 stars honor larger than life figures in Palm Springs history. But they honor more than movie stars. Humanitarians, architects, artists, soldiers, athletes, and city pioneers are all over this walk! If they made a contribution to Palm Springs in some way, they get a star!

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Coachella Valley

We’re going to leave downtown Palm Springs now to see more of Coachella Valley. Does that name sound familiar? It should! This valley is home to the world-renowned Coachella Music Festival. But there’s so much more to it than that!

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Palm Springs International Airport

In 1939, the United States Corps of Engineers sought out space to build an Army Air Corps landing field. The country was on the brink of war, and they needed space for training more soldiers. Coachella Valley had pretty good weather almost all year round, and the mountains shielded the area from strong winds. It was perfect! After the war, it soon became a civilian airport.

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Frank Sinatra Gravesite

Sinatra passed away in 1998. He was buried with: A bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey, a zippo lighter, a pack of Camel cigarettes, and… 10 dimes. Okay, the first few make sense, but what’s with the dimes? Those go back to December of 1963.⚠️ NOTE: Star Homes may be obscured or partially hidden by gates, shrubs, or private roads. Please do not violate anyone’s privacy during your tour.

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Willis Palm Trailhead

Just ahead is the Willis Palm Trailhead. This moderately strenuous 4-mile hike takes about three hours and climbs 500 feet of elevation along the way. But on the loop, you can see birds, desert wildlife, and desert wildflowers if you’re visiting during the spring!

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Pushwalla Palms Trailhead

Pushawalla Palms trail is coming up on our right. This is right at the bottom of the Thousand Palms Oasis Preserve, but it actually goes in the opposite direction. It’s a moderate 4.5-mile hike with an elevation gain of 700 feet. But oh the views! You’ll be walking on the ridge of the San Andreas Fault, and you’ll see those palm tree oases where the water is bubbling up from way down deep in the Earth! There are groves and groves of palm trees! It takes around three hours to complete.

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Thousand Palms Oasis Preserve (Pass By)

We’ve reached the Thousand Palms Oasis Preserve! This magical place is home to plentiful walking trails, wildlife, and lush scenery. Officials are renovating a lot of this preserve at the moment after a storm hit it pretty hard, so the visitor center is closed until further notice. But the trails are open from sunrise to sunset!

Forever Marilyn

This huge statue of Marilyn Monroe stands here courtesy of sculptor Seward Johnson, who designed this 26-foot-tall statue in 2011. He got the money to put it up first in Chicago for a year, then he got sponsorship to put it here in Palm Springs. The statue stood here in Palm Springs for two years, then toured the world showcasing the artist and his work. It moved to Australia for a while.

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

1326 N Rose Ave (Pass By)

This house at 1326 North Rose Avenue was ostensibly Marilyn Monroe’s house. Bus tours and maps of famous houses here have been saying that for years. But according to locals, it may not have been hers!

Frey House II (Pass By)

The Frey House II at 686 Palisades Drive isn’t open to the public, but the Palm Springs Museum hosts guided tours of the property. It’s famous for a couple reasons. First of all, the architect who made it was known as the father of “desert modernism.” Albert Frey was Swiss. He got his architecture diploma in Switzerland, and he worked in Zurich, Belgium, and France. When he was 27, he moved to the United States. In New York, he started to build the American modernist architecture movement. After finishing work on the Museum of Modern Art in New York, he settled in Palm Springs. It was just after World War II and the population here was booming! Those people needed homes.⚠️ NOTE: Star Homes may be obscured or partially hidden by gates, shrubs, or private roads. Please do not violate anyone’s privacy during your tour.

Palm Canyon Trail

Palm Canyon Trail is a pretty easy hike. It’s only 2 miles out and back again and has an elevation gain of only 200 feet. Most people take around an hour to complete it. Hikers are treated to some fabulous canyon scenery along the way. But be aware before you set off: There is an entrance fee to do this trail. The little building in this parking lot is called The Trading Post. You can pay the entrance fee there.

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Andreas Canyon Trailhead

Andreas Canyon is an easy hike. It’s only a mile loop with an elevation gain of about 175 feet. Most people do it in about a half hour. Along the trail, you’ll see more than 150 plant species within a half a mile! The trail features tons of palm trees, lots of interesting rock formations, and Andreas Creek. Plus, you can still see dents in the rock where Cahuilla people would grind down their food to cook too. It’s just a beautiful hike!

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Moorten Botanical Garden

The Moorten Botanical Garden is a must-see for desert plant lovers. Chester “Cactus Slim” and Patricia Moorten created this garden in the 1940s. You see, Cactus Slim had been an actor in movies in the 1920s and 30s. He’d also been a stand-in for Howard Hughes! But he developed a bad case of TB on a film set and discovered he needed the dry desert air to breathe.⚠️ NOTE: Star Homes may be obscured or partially hidden by gates, shrubs, or private roads. Please do not violate anyone’s privacy during your tour.

10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Palm Springs Aerial Tramway (Pass By)

The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway is the world’s largest rotating tram car. It travels 2.5 miles along Chino Canyon and climbs high up to the wilds of Mount San Jacinto State Park. Along the way, the tram car slowly rotates 360 degrees for a spectacular view of the valley below! The mountaintop has restaurants, a gift shop, and plenty of hiking trails

Pioneertown (Pass By)

Yeehaw! There’s no place like Pioneertown! This is a town created by Hollywood to mimic the Wild West. In 1946, Dick Curtis, Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, and several other show biz people invested in making this little spot in the California desert a living, breathing movie set. They bought 32,000 acres of land and transformed it into Pioneertown. They could film movies out here, they could vacation, and they could even have second homes out here!

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Additional Info

Confirmation is instant and will be received at time of booking
Public transportation options are available nearby

Suitable for all physical fitness levels
After booking the tour, search your emails and texts for "audio tour". Your tour is VALID FOR ONE YEAR so follow these instructions NOW to finish setting up the tour while you have Wi-Fi/data. Do NOT wait until you are onsite.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Q: What is the cancellation policy for the Palm Springs Self-Guided Driving Audio Tour?

A: You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the tour for a full refund. For a full refund, you must cancel at least 24 hours before the tour start time.If you cancel less than 24 hours before the tour start time, the amount you paid will not be refunded.Any changes made less than 24 hours before the tour start time will not be accepted.Cut-off times are based on the tour local time (PDT). Read more Apr 2025