Pioneertown

Pioneertown is the high desert's most charming oddity: a town built as a movie set. In 1946 a group of Hollywood cowboy stars and investors created it in the hills above Yucca Valley as a working set for Westerns where cast and crew could also live, and more than 200 films and television shows were shot here, including Gene Autry productions. The facades never came down. Mane Street, a car-free dirt street listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is lined with false-front buildings that now house working shops and studios, from the Pioneertown General Store to a pottery studio, and the whole street is open to the public every day of the year, free. Pioneer Bowl, opened in 1947 as one of the town's first buildings and once home to the post office, has six wood lanes; Roy Rogers is said to have rolled the first ball. On select Saturdays, volunteer reenactors stage Old West gunfight shows on the street. The anchor is Pappy and Harriet's Pioneertown Palace, a honky-tonk serving open-fire barbecue since the 1980s and one of the most famous small music venues in California, where big names have dropped in to play. Free parking is available at Pappy and Harriet's and on the east side of Mane Street; the town asks visitors not to park along Pioneertown Road. Pioneertown is under an hour from Palm Springs via Highway 62 and makes an easy pairing with Joshua Tree's West Entrance.

The setting is as much of a draw as the town. Pioneertown sits among boulder-strewn hills and Joshua trees at around 4,000 feet, noticeably cooler than the valley, and the light at sunset turns the false fronts gold. Just up the road, the Pioneertown Mountains Preserve, a vast protected area managed by The Wildlands Conservancy and the place where that organization began, is free, open from dawn to dusk, and offers hiking trails through high-desert canyons and woodland; leashed dogs are welcome there. A short hike before an evening at Pappy and Harriet's is a perfect high-desert day.

Know before you go: Mane Street is a living community, not a theme park. Shops keep their own hours, which are often limited on weekdays, and the street is quietest midweek; weekends bring more open doors, visitors and, on some Saturdays, the gunfight shows. Pappy and Harriet's is very popular, so expect waits for tables on weekends, check its calendar for ticketed concerts, and book where possible. Evenings get cold outside summer, so bring a jacket.

For Palm Springs visitors, Pioneertown works best as part of a high-desert loop: Joshua Tree in the morning and early afternoon, a drive west to Pioneertown for golden hour on Mane Street, then dinner and music at Pappy and Harriet's before the drive back down the hill. Couples love it for the atmosphere, families for the Western-movie fun, and anyone interested in Hollywood history for the chance to walk through a set that became a home.