WHERE TO STAY
A Hotel Boom in Palm Springs
Sparrows Hotel in Palm Springs
Sparrows Hotel
The big P-S is no longer leaning on its midcentury modern glory days. A neo-renaissance seems to be Springs-ing up in this desert town. The 19-room Sparrows Hotel (pictured), between the Ace and Saguaro, is a restored El Rancho Lodge, and each room is outfitted with handmade furniture and an outdoor fireplace (rooms from $150). Sparrows opens October 1, as does a 160-room Hard Rock Hotel in the former Hotel Zoso (rooms from $270). Camp Palm Springs has been remade as Skylark Hotel (rooms from $149), and Extended Stay America has changed its name to a more hip, boutiquey-sounding The Monroe Palm Springs (free Wi-Fi, opened September 1, rooms from $110). In the rental home category, Random Haus is a 12-unit “condo-hotel” for LGBT travelers and families (suites from $195) while Colony 29 is a beautiful cluster of six houses, first constructed in 1929 as an artist colony. The property also has a palapa treehouse that can host an intimate soirée with views of the city and mountains (guest houses from $325). Visit PS this month for Modernism Week’s Fall Kick-Off, the World Championships Chili Cook-Off, Oktoberfest, the very first Fashion Weekend, spa week, a bike weekend (motorcycle haters, stay away on October 25–27), and Feartastic, a horror film festival. —Erin Meanley
Union Station LA
TRANSPORTATION + ART
Watch an Invisible Opera in L.A.
Starting October 19, commuters deboarding the Surfliner at Union Station just may find themselves in the middle of a performance by The Industry and L.A. Dance Project. Invisible Cities is based on Italo Calvino’s 1972 novel imagining a meeting between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo. Put on wireless headphones and listen to both prerecorded and live voices. Trippy? Yes, but you’re in a train station, where trips are a given (and a-taken).
$45
Amount that SAN’s “Green Build” renovation came in under budget. (And it was completed on time—wish we could say the same for some of our flights.)
San Diego airport
San Diego airport
