Introduction to Gay Palm Springs

Why is Palm Springs so appealing to the Gay traveler?

Gay Palm Springs is a huge outdoor playground with consistently brilliant sunshine, great for sunning and all types of outdoor activities. Our climate is the envy of the world, with more than 330 days of sunshine each year. The town’s atmosphere is laid back resort casual with many small village charming shops and unique specialty stores, especially in the Uptown Arts and Antique District on North Palm Canyon Drive.There is something truly special about Gay Palm Springs beyond its beautiful oasis setting in the Southern California dessert.

In recent years, Palm Springs has experienced a huge influx of new Gay residents and Gay businesses. The Gay population is now estimated at more than 50 percent of the annual resident population. Today the City of Palm Springs has the highest per capita gay population in the US, if not the world.Palm Springs has an exciting lineup of ever changing Gay and/or Gay-oriented events including the International Film Festival, the Short Film Festival, Cinema Diverse (the gay and lesbian film festival), the Nabisco Classic (formally the Dinah Shore Classic) and of course the infamous White Party.

The city’s annual Gay Pride Festival is a sanctioned Palm Springs event – a fabulous Gay parade followed by live entertainment, food and dancing which continues long into the evening and especially at Arenas Street’s many gay bars. At Halloween, Arenas Street is converted into an entertaining Gay block party, highlighted by a costume contest.

Every Thursday night Palm Springs’ main street, Palm Canyon Drive, is closed to traffic and opened for an extensive street festival with local food vendors, arts and crafts exhibits, and loads of free entertainment provided by local artists. Strolling, munching and sipping a drink along the length of Palm Canyon Drive from one end to the other in the heart of Palm Springs is a great way to ‘people and puppy watch’ for an hour, or for an entire evening.

We hope you will visit Gay Palm Springs and discover the ‘secret’ of this desert ‘Gay’ paradise oasis for yourself. Palm Springs, as branded by the Palm Springs Bureau of Tourism, “is like no place else”!