Despite living in California for most of my life, there are many famous landmarks that I have not been able to personally visit. One of such places is Joshua Tree National Park.
Visiting Joshua Tree National Park in California
This U.S. National Park is located east of Palm Springs / Palm Desert in Southern California. If you like desert views, hiking, and having fun climbing big rocks, this is a great place to visit. (FYI, the climbing is not that extreme but there are opportunities for that too.) You can check the official site for current pricing and FAQs.
There are two distinct sides of the park, the Mojave and the Colorado, and it’s interesting to see how the landscape changes accordingly. The Mojave side is much more barren with a lot of rocks, while the Colorado side has more greenery and larger Joshua Trees.
So what is a Joshua Tree and where can you see one? These trees look like weird palm / cactus hybrids with “hairy,” arm-like branches that stick out. And, though they seemed a bit sparse when we entered from the Mojave side of the park, they are actually everywhere.
Cottonwood Spring Oasis
Since we arrived much later to the park than we intended (see note at the end of this post), we had to narrow down which spots we wanted to visit. So, after taking a bathroom break at the first visitor we came across, we headed straight on to Cottonwood Spring Oasis. There, we saw an awkward grove of palm trees clustered together along a short walking path.
We took some time to explore around the area and stretch. But, since there wasn’t too much to see aside from the dirt and rocks that covered the area, we took off to our next destination!
Cholla Cactus Garden
One person in our group really wanted to visit the Cholla Cactus Garden. This area is packed with several Teddy Bear Cholla cacti.
Beware: These may look soft and fuzzy but THEY ARE NOT! Unless you want to be in a world of pain from reverse barbed spines that dig into the skin and won’t come out, I suggest keeping a healthy distance from the plants.
You should also watch where you walk. We saw a preteen boy step on one and he couldn’t get it out of his shoe (he seemed to be in some pain so we’re not sure if the barbs actually punctured his foot through the sole). I must admit that they do look cool, though, even when they die and the skeleton-like hollow pieces remain.
Heart Rock and Arch Rock
Next we headed to the rocks — Heart Rock and Arch Rock, that is. The sun was starting to set (despite it only being around 4 p.m.) so we hurriedly made our way back to the main road. This area is full of larger boulder-type rocks that look straight out of Disneyland so be prepared to navigate over, between, and around the rocks.
Once we found a parking spot, we jumped out of the car, walked through the RV camping area, and headed first to Arch Rock. This hot spot is super busy as it’s a perfect photo op for a family’s “We were here!” memoir. I climbed up a bit just to take a photo but, with our limited amount of day light left, there was no way we were going to wait for the photo line to dwindle. I’ll leave that for next time 🤪
From there, it was just a short jaunt to Heart Rock. It was pretty obvious as to why it was named such. Getting to and waiting to take our photo here was much easier than at Arch Rock at least.
But, having some photo-editing skills or a photo app can come in handy when you’re somewhere with a lot of other people! Either that or come REALLY early in the morning for a quieter visit to the park.
After the sun set, we made a B-line back to our car. Some other late-comers were trickling into the area as we were heading out. With so many potential fall and trip hazards, this is not the best area to be in when it gets dark. You can find some easy, flat paths but that’s only if you can actually see where you’re going!
Stargazing
Though we only had a limited amount of time to explore the park, we didn’t mind because the last item on our “things to do in Joshua Tree National Park” could only be experienced after dark anyway. With such a huge area of land covered by dirt, rocks, and desert plants, you can imagine how ideal it is for stargazing.
Sometimes, when we go to watch the stars in places such as these, it can be a little scary since no one is around. Not at Joshua Tree National Park though! We were actually surprised by how many people were still entering and driving around the park despite it being almost pitch black. The park is actually open 24 hours a day, year-round, making it the perfect place for camping, stargazing, and even family cookouts.
That being the case, it did take a bit of time to find a somewhere secluded spot where people didn’t have their headlights on.
We found a little picnic area and decided to get out there. At first, we all just huddled up on the side of a large rock. But, after I remembered that I had a picnic blanket in the car, we spread it out and laid on one of the tables with benches (don’t judge us, we covered the table and didn’t put our feet on it 🫣 ). The moon was pretty full that evening so it took a while for our eyes to adjust. Even still, we saw so many stars!
Desert nights mean cool temperatures. Once we were all thoroughly frozen, we jumped back into the car and blasted the heater. Then it was time to head home.
Joshua Tree National Park — Things to Know
When visiting for the first time, you might want to check out the First-Time Visitors’ Guide that is on the National Park (NPS) website. It probably would have been good for us to read that before going but we didn’t . . . The main points to keep in mind are:
- Bring food, snacks, and drinks with you as there aren’t many places to get things to eat in the park.
- Bring more water than you think you’ll need, especially in the warmer months when it can get up to 120 degrees on any given day.
- A blanket and flashlight would be good to have with you if you plan to stay out after sunset.
- Get a map at one of the Visitor Centers or download an offline map to your phone because there isn’t much cell phone reception in the park.
- No connectivity also means no outlets to plug your phone into. Bring an extra battery pack , especially if you plan on taking photos and videos during your visit.
- Since there aren’t any gas stations or electric power stations in the park either, you might want to fill up your tank before entering the park.
Note: For those thinking about driving a non-Tesla electric vehicle (EV) into the park, charging up might be challenging. On the west side, all of the stations that we tried to use nearby were full, out-of-service, or ridiculously slow. (That’s why we arrived a few hours later than we anticipated.) Fortunately, there is a really fancy Rivian Charging Outpost outside the eastern side that we could finally charge at before heading back.
Joshua Tree National Park is a unique place to visit with a wide open desert landscape and beautiful skies to fawn over at all times of day and year. Overall, we had a great visit despite some challenges that caused us to arrive only a couple hours before sunset. It’s definitely better to arrive here earlier to avoid the crowds while exploring and to enjoy the gorgeous scenery at your leisure.
