A sun-bleached stage set of palm trees, pastel optimism and mid-century daydreams, Palm Desert has a way of making reality feel lightly edited. At its playful heart sits Hotel Paseo – part boutique bolthole, part Instagram set piece – where a vintage Cadillac and Airstream signal a stay that’s as much about mood as it is about rooms.
Palm Desert flings you headlong into its own brand of bougie, sun-baked optimism, like a Slim Aarons photograph reimagined for the 2020s. The city has a more contemporary, more residential take on the classic Palm Springs vibe. It’s a place that looks uncannily like a film set (at one point, we thought we were in The Truman Show). It’s pristine, there are perfectly placed palm trees, and its residents engage in iced-coffee rituals and long, languid lunches heavy with low-stakes society gossip. It sits just far enough from its better-known neighbour to feel like a smug little discovery, yet close enough that you can dip back into that mid-century modern fantasia whenever the mood strikes.
Into this sun-drenched stage set rolls Hotel Paseo, set in one of Palm Desert’s cooler corners within easy reach of the boutiques, galleries and the wider desert landscape. Part of the Autograph Collection by Marriott International, a portfolio that trades on individuality over uniformity, the hotel occupies that curious sweet spot between chain-backed reliability and boutique bravado. Hotel Paseo is a textbook example of the brand’s promise: an independently spirited property with a distinct personality, underpinned by the reassuring scaffolding of a global hospitality giant and the added perk of points for devotees of Marriott Bonvoy. The theory is you get the best of both worlds – character without chaos, style without sacrificing standards.
In practice, Hotel Paseo leans heavily into the former. It greeted us with a kind of exuberant charm that felt distinctly noughties in its aesthetic: colourful, glossy and playful. The lobby set the tone immediately. There’s a gleaming red 1955 Cadillac parked as a centrepiece, and outside, in its garden area, a polished silver 1950 Airstream caravan set on an astroturf lawn doubles as a speciality suite.
It is all very deliberate – Instagram bait, certainly, but knowingly so. The hotel didn’t apologise for wanting to be photographed. In fact, it positively encouraged it. The pool area, dotted with pink flamingo floats bobbing lazily in the water, felt like a playful invitation. A giant “California” sign stretched across one of the garden walls, framed by a regimented line of cacti that, at certain times of day, cast perfectly formed shadows like stencil art.
And yet, we found something endearing about its enthusiasm. The pool area, dotted with pink flamingo floats bobbing lazily in the water, felt like a playful invitation. This is a hotel that understands fun is not a dirty word – that sometimes travellers don’t want to be awed into silence but coaxed into a grin.
Inside, the art collection continued this theme of cheerful eclecticism. It’s somewhat of an art hotel, although it was not billed as such, and while that might conjure visions of carefully curated galleries, what we found here was more akin to a spirited jumble sale of contemporary curiosities. A diving mannequin hung in mid-plunge, while oversized artworks of colourful Converse-style trainers climbed the walls in a riot of hues. It didn’t always feel cohesive, but perhaps that’s the point. This is not about intellectual rigour; it’s about visual delight.
The lobby’s coffee lounge, meanwhile, proved to be something of a quiet hero. In a destination where the midday sun can feel like a personal affront, having a cool, comfortable corner to retreat to, iced caffeine in hand, was true luxury.
Our room told a slightly different story. If the public spaces were all exuberance and eccentricity, the accommodation retreated into a more subdued, almost meditative palette. Think earthy beiges, muted browns and a heavy emphasis on texture over colour. Clean lines dominated, and while everything we needed was present and correct, there was a noticeable absence of the playful spirit that defined the rest of the hotel.
This wasn’t necessarily a flaw – more a shift in mood. The room felt intentionally pared back, perhaps designed as a counterpoint to the visual busyness elsewhere. There’s something to be said for a space that doesn’t demand your attention, that allows you to come and go without guilt. In fact, we found a certain freedom in it. We happily spent entire days exploring the Coachella Valley and its other desert towns, safe in the knowledge that our room would be a calm, uncomplicated refuge upon return.
That said, the occasional chain-hotel quirk did peek through. Amenities were a touch sparse, and there was a faint sense that the budget may have been allocated more generously to the Instagrammable flourishes than to the finer details behind the scenes. It was not enough to detract from the overall experience, but it did nudge the property slightly away from the realm of true luxury.
Our balcony overlooked the hotel’s pool and gardens, but beyond that, the view extended into the neighbouring residential areas – a patchwork of palms, private pools and sun-bleached patios. The effect blurred the boundaries, creating the illusion of a much larger, more expansive retreat. It’s a clever bit of visual trickery that added to the sense of place.
And that, ultimately, is where Hotel Paseo succeeds most. It captures something essential about Palm Desert – that sparkling, sun-drenched personality that doesn’t take itself too seriously. There’s a retro coolness here, a nod to the golden age of Californian leisure, but filtered through a playful, contemporary lens.
This is not the obvious choice for the traditional luxury traveller. If your idea of indulgence leans towards hushed lobbies, ubiquitous amenities, impeccable symmetry and an army of staff anticipating your every need, you may find Hotel Paseo a little too irreverent, a little too relaxed around the edges. Its facilities, while perfectly adequate, don’t stretch into the expansive territory of larger resorts, and its aesthetic prioritises character over cohesion. But what it lacks in sheer opulence it makes up for in spirit.
For a certain kind of traveller – the sort who values personality over predictability – it hits a sweet spot. This is a hotel for those who have perhaps already done Palm Springs, who are returning to the Coachella Valley in search of something slightly different. It’s for those who appreciate a good design moment but don’t need it to be taken too seriously, who enjoy a touch of mischief alongside their sunshine.
And sometimes, in a place where the sun shines this brightly and the days stretch this long, that’s exactly what you want: a hotel that doesn’t try too hard to impress, but instead invites you to relax, have a little fun and, yes, take that photo or ten.
Photography courtesy of Hotel Paseo
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While you’re OutThere
If there is one thing to do in Palm Desert that strips back the gloss and noise, it is an early morning hike up the Bump and Grind Trail. Set out just after dawn from the Hotel Paseo, when the air is still cool. The climb is steady rather than punishing, winding you up into scrubby, sun-bleached hills where the Coachella Valley unfurls below. From the ridge, the desert reveals its scale in full – an austere, cinematic sweep backed by the distant folds of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument.
