• Favorite place to eat in SoCal: Villa’s Tacos. Not only do they make the best tacos—they have these nopales ones that I love—but the vibe there is always so amazing. You turn up and the music's pumping and the energy is so good. And there's so much love fed into every single taco that you get. I think that's an incredible energy to keep serving.
  
  

• Best kept SoCal secret: Me. [laughs] But I have another one: Dub Siren has been putting on these really great dub nights. That’s something that's very traditional in London, you know, like Dub Reggae, Sound System. There's a lot of them and obviously, the correlation between Jamaica and the studios producing music in south and west London, like Brixton and Notting Hill…. They were sort of codependent in building a lot of the reggae scene. And so, growing up in London, dub was part of the fabric of our lives. And the nights are kind of like full-on sonic experiences. They’re amazing and so beautiful and just a great place to hang out. They've just started putting them on in LA and it's a super new, burgeoning scene that didn't exist before.
  
  

• I love SoCal because...I love the freedom that it gives me. I love the liberation of being in SoCal. And I I love the mountains. I know we're all supposed to say that we love the sea and the mountains. But really, I just love the mountains.
  
  

• Follow Polly on Instagram @pollywales
  
  

• Listen to Polly's playlist on Spotify

SLOW DOWN

Next up is Joshua Tree National Park, a wonderful place to shift your perspective with its famous, Dr. Seuss-like Joshua trees and incredible rock formations such as Skull Rock. Wales likes it because “it's just so different from any kind of environment that I grew up in,” she says, “coming from England where it's so green all the time. There's parts of it that I understand and there's a lot that I just don't get, you know? But then, to sit out in Joshua Tree, in the calm and the still and the night skies and the beautiful plants that you don't see anywhere else—and to have to get quiet enough to see the things…. When you get still enough, that's when I think you really get to appreciate how amazing it is.”

TAKE A SOUND BATH

Twenty miles north of Joshua Tree is the Integratron, a unique structure with impressive acoustic abilities and a quirky background, including design that may have been influenced by extraterrestrial telepathy. In 2019, it won a spot on the National Register of Historic Places. “I haven’t been, but I’d very much like to go,” says Wales. “Apparently the acoustics in there are incredible.” Make a reservation in advance for the Integratron’s signature sound bath.

Afterwards, refuel at beloved La Copine where meals are comforting and a little bit fancy, from beignets to steak sandwiches to spicy melon gazpacho. “La Copine is delightful,” says Wales. They operate on a limited schedule (smart given the desert heat) so check their website before you go.

FIND A VINTAGE TREASURE

“There's loads of brilliant vintage places all through 29 Palms and [the town of] Joshua Tree,” encourages Wales. “They're all great to stop at but The End, owned by Kimi Buzzelli is my favorite.” 

MOVE AND CREATE

Also in 29 Palms, “Ryan Heffington’s just opened up this amazing place that looks great,” says Wales. A dancer and choreographer, Heffington moved to 29 Palms in March of 2020, seeking respite and a restart. After buying property there, Heffington started Desert Trade, a residency that features performances, workshops, concerts, retreats, and more.

HUNGRY?

Around dinnertime, Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace is the place to be. Located in Pioneertown, a town originally built in 1946 to be a movie set for Westerns, Pappy and Harriet’s is big on rustic charm, tasty BBQ, and top-notch live music. “Pappy and Harriet's is brilliant,” says Wales. “There's always good music; I saw the Violent Femmes there a little while ago. The food is great and it's just another example of entering into a completely different culture. So that's always good.”

REST AND REFLECT

For a luxurious place to rest your head, book a room at Parker Palm Springs. “The Parker is pretty amazing,” says Wales. “It’s all Jonathan Adler [interiors], so it's very fabulous. The first time we stayed there, we got this incredible deal and that was because we were stupid English people who didn't realize that Palm Springs was not hot all year,” she laughs. “We tried to go through Joshua Tree with two small children in summer dresses in the middle of winter. It was an utter disaster.”

While you’re in Palm Springs, visit PST ART exhibit Particles & Waves: Southern California Abstraction and Science, 1945-1990 at the Palm Springs Museum of Art. The show explores the effect physics has had on abstract art during those years, and includes artists such as Man Ray, Lee Mullican, The West Coast Minimalists, and Light and Space artists like Mary Corse and James Turrell.

START A NEW DAY

Venture into new territory, a sort of pilgrimage to the lands of off-the-grid artists, by driving farther south to the Salton Sea. An unusual natural spectacle, the Sea was originally created in the early 1900s when the Colorado River flooded past canal gates that supplied water for farming in the Imperial Valley. Over the years, water levels have dropped and the water’s salinity has increased, making it harder to support wildlife.

“It’s definitely worth going to because it used to be a super vibrant resort,” explains Wales. “Like, Frank Sinatra, everyone would go out to the Salton Sea to water ski and have this incredible time. And slowly, as the water dried up, the community dried up. And now everybody who’s living there are these strange, desiccated folk. The edge of the Sea is completely covered in fish bones. So you're walking over salty fish bones and it’s really aromatic…yeah, it's really weird.”

And yet, the strangeness or as Wales describes it “the search for a New America” in these regions is also compelling. “I think what's interesting about that area is, you know, coming from a country where there's nowhere, really, that's off the beaten path, and then you step outside of sort of the main citizens of America and it becomes very different. A very weird, free space for all of these communities to evolve and grow and have very different natures to them than things that are so close by. Like to be that close to LA or Palm Springs, but yet to be these trailer park cities that are encapsulated in brine…. I think it's really fascinating to see that there's space and time for people to have done those things.”

Wales appreciates the art installation Salvation Mountain for the same reason. Measuring 50 feet high and 150 feet wide, Salvation Mountain was created by artist Leonard Knight as a tribute to God and love. “It’s this incredible outsider art piece,” explains Wales. “I think Knight spent 14 years building it. It’s this sort of straw bale hill with strange bits of found objects and these wonderful, like, caverns inside it. He built it by himself and then spent years painting it with house paint. It was his life's work and his dedication to the Lord. You can go and walk around it and it's really amazing. That's one of the most wonderful things that I've been to out in the desert.”

End the road trip with one last stop less than a mile from Salvation Mountain: East Jesus describes itself as a “experimental, sustainable, habitable art installation.”

“It’s another sort of wild, outsider art installation,” says Wales. “A 30-acre dedicated museum with large-scale art, started by [artist] Charlie Russell. There's a whole city of people living in their trailers and vehicles out there, making art that goes into East Jesus and people can visit. You can go and drive around and wonder how on earth people are surviving in the incredible heat. They’ve got stages set up, so they have performances in the evening. And it’s just people living off grid and outside of society.”