Desert Springs Hot Spring Resort

While we enjoyed an early morning coffee with the retirees of the Lows, at Slab City, one of the older gentlemen told us about a place just a bit north.  As we were slowly heading north towards Death Valley we could stop at a little place in his home town of Desert Springs, California for a nice hot soak (which was getting to be a necessity after quite a while without a shower in the hot southern desert of California).  

Outside of the more famous and more posh town of Palm Springs, California we found Desert Springs and its many hot springs resorts.  We were not looking for one of the nicer resorts that come complete with a Spa and other luxury offerings.  We were looking for a special place far away from the ritzy area that also had a really cheap special on Tuesdays.  

We pulled up to the Dessert Springs Hotel, which looked straight out of the 80’s.  It had not been renovated or repainted since its heyday forty years ago. It looked exactly like the place I was looking for.

We paid our discounted Tuesday rate of $6 dollars each and proceeded past the hotels courtyard that housed the tubs to the dirty change rooms.  When we emerged from the change rooms we could choose from a variety of different tubs which all had slightly different temperatures.  Again, the courtyard felt straight out of an eighties movie.  Old tiles lined the tubs, the original hot springs metal sign was in classic cursive font in front of faded blue tiles, Palm Trees grew out of planters around the courtyard, metal lawn furniture was neatly set throughout.  Two floors of hotel room doors bordered the area as they opened right out to the tubs.

We soaked our bodies in the hot water and watched as the hotel guests mingled around us.  We moved from cooler tubs to hotter tubs and back to cooler tubs as we looked for the perfect temperature.  Finally, after several hours, we were soaked out and decided to leave for the night.  We returned to the change rooms for a hot shower that did not have any hot water, which seemed inconceivable to me for a hot spring resort to not have any hot water for their showers.  After our cold showers we made our way to our van in the parking lot to spend the night.  We returned in the morning to use their bathrooms and wifi...obviously.  

While Desert Springs Resort did not have the beautiful scenery or clean change rooms with functionally hot showers it did offer a very low cost soak and a free place to park for the night.  After spending several days in the hot desert around Slab City nothing felt better than a nice hot soak and a shower.  It was definitely not the nicest place we've been but I quite liked the dated 80’s feel and the overall experience was nice and I had a fun time.  Do I ever have a bad time at a hot spring?
Cleanliness - 3
Amenities - 4
Exclusivity - 1
Scenery - 1
Community - 1
Camping - 2