Think of Palm Springs, and the word “gay” immediately comes to mind. This small town in the Coachella Valley desert has evolved as one of the most liberal regions in the U.S. and welcomes visitors of all shapes, sizes, genders, and flavors.

Long famed as a delightful respite from Hollywood hoopla, Palm Springs has attracted the likes of tycoons, starlets, and average denizens, an easy fix of natural grandeur and low profiling. Since the 1930s, this serene oasis garnered a reputation as a place where the artsy and opportunistic leave the homogeneous standing and posing behind, and where genuine eccentricity and esotericism shine.

Jeffrey Sanker’s first A-lister “White Party” in 1989 landed Palm Springs a star on the gay global map. Around the same time, Sonny Bono was elected mayor. With links to Cher in the air and a pro-business and liberal agenda, the GLBT community painted this fabled desert pink in the nineties, ditching the bullshit of societal “norms” in surrounding counties. Flash forward to 2011. The desert landscape floats in a sea of gay guesthouses and bars. The city celebrates eight years of leadership by openly gay mayors. The White Party Palm Springs (www.jeffreysanker.com) expects over 30,000 attendees this April and Palm Spring’s Dinah Shore Week (www.dinahshoreweekend.com) shines as American’s largest lesbian event.

In east coast terminology, Palm Springs is the west coast’s Key West. Desert rusts and oranges replace oceanic blues and tropical greens, but the hedonistic overtones, the abundance of Viagra popping babyboomers, and the ubiquitous nudity are one in the same.

Blessed with splendid scenery and warm temperatures year round, Palm Springs thrives as a perennial outdoor playground, ideal for hiking, biking, swimming, tennis, and horseback riding. On weekends, the majority of outdoor action is found at the clothing-optional All Worlds Resort and Camp Palm Springs (www.camp-palm-springs.com, 800-793-0063). The poolside shenanigans are best enjoyed through the purchase of a day pass. Unlike Key West’s famed Island House, Palm Springs has yet to champion that delicate and delicious luxury/debauchery daytime/nighttime equilibrium in the form of a single guesthouse. Palm Springs’ repeat guests know that there is a difference in where to stay and where to play.

Luckily, visitors are spoiled for choice when it comes to more upscale sleeping arrangements, with everything from refined, gay-centric hotels to lavish and seductive boutique properties. Hacienda at Warm Sands is an intimate and luxuriously appointed all-suite guesthouse, catering to the more sophisticated GLBT traveler, seeking high thread counts and posh amenities and no poolside cruising. Over 80 years strong, the timeless Viceroy Palm Springs showcases the revered Hollywood Regency style, commingling vintage flair with shameless glamour. An enclave of sumptuous suites decked out in black and white patterns, peppered with citrus hues and accessories, open to a labyrinthine of symmetrical courtyards, sculpted gardens, and alluring swimming pools. Down the road, Korakia Pensione offers experiential rustic luxury, a tranquil wellness escape among exquisite North African architecture and furnishings. Replacing TVs with easels and laptops with classic books, Korakia charms guests with the simplicity of a time bygone and the visual stateliness of foreign worlds.

But Palm Springs is so much more than awesome hotels and easy sex! The land is richly endowed with the gifts of Mother Nature, from towering Joshua trees and majestic canyons to the bluest of blue skies that dazzle with constellations come nightfall. The superlative way to appreciate the region’s natural magnificence is aboard the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway (www.pstramway.com), the world's largest rotating tramcar, which soars up the vertical cliffs of Chino Canyon, climbing to 8,516 ft over ten breath-taking minutes. In the blink of an eye, mounds of snow and alpine wilderness replace parched desert sands. At the top of the canyon begins the 13,000-acre Mt. San Jacinto Wilderness State Park, with some 54 miles of hiking trails, though most visitors hardly make it past the icy, quarter-mile trail. Back at lower altitudes, the bizarre, rocky landscapes of Joshua Tree National Park (http://www.nps.gov/jotr/index.htm) resemble storybook settings of prehistoric Earth. Each hairpin turn leads to random collections of spiky, Joshua trees and piled boulders that form mind-boggling formations, like the fascinating skull rock. Tour outfitter, Desert Adventures (www.red-jeep.com), braves the twists and turns of Joshua Tree’s back roads and the canyons of the San Andres Fault Zone in hearty 4WD vehicles, providing awesome insight into the geology, history, and ecology of Palm Springs’ surrounding wonders.