Forty years ago Joan Didion found herself in San Bernardino and not liking it much. It was a place "where it is possible to live and die without ever eating an artichoke, without ever meeting a Catholic or a Jew", wrote the grande dame of left-coast letters. "This is the California where it is easy to Dial-a-Devotion but hard to buy a book."
Her mood was not helped by the task at hand: chronicling a grim story about a woman who had burnt her husband alive in his VW Beetle because she wanted his life insurance to fund her new affair.
The rare female representative of "new journalism" was stuck in sunburnt, wind-blasted San Bernardino when she could have been frolicking with contemporaries such as Tom Wolfe in super-cool Los Angeles 100 miles to the west.
Or she could have been a few miles to the north, breathing free in the mountains in the burgeoning ski resorts at Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear; further east in Palm Springs, winter headquarters of Hollywood's stars; or drumming, smoking and soaking with the hippies in Desert Hot Springs.
Colonised by ugly overspill from LA, San Bernardino is still not much of a place but it remains the gateway to LA's vast and varied hinterland, known as the Inland Empire.
It is touring country, served with roads and dirt tracks (for the bold in a 4x4) to allow easy and speedy access to the wilderness, its resorts, casinos,forests, mountains, deserts and backwaters.
Palm Springs, the urbanised centre of the Coachella Valley, marks the start of an eastbound ribbon of un-charming development running along the Interstate-10 freeway, crammed with retirees and their attendant golf courses.
Though its resident stars have dwindled in number and the population is rising fast, it remains a vibrant, tolerant and pleasingly intimate place.
Only two-and-a-half hours from Los Angeles and San Diego, it is an easy-to-reach weekend getaway for southern Californians, with much of the fun but little of the seaminess of faraway Las Vegas.
It is favoured by well-heeled gays (some living in exclusive retirement communities), packed with good restaurants and hotels, shops and casino entertainment. It also offers an annual film festival that, as in Sundance and elsewhere, provides an excellent excuse for an extravagant citywide party.
For the heat-intolerant, Palm Springs is best visited, like the rest of the region, between late autumn and early summer. In between - and this is outdoor country - outdoor temperatures climb to well over 100°F.
As a rule, it is both easy to get to and easy to escape from. But late April is an exception. That is when tens of thousands of music fans flock in from all directions to Indio, west of Palm Springs for the must-see California pop concert of the year.
Started five years ago, and defying all fears that the fierce heat would keep the fans at bay, the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, now attracts top international bands and 50,000 people a day.
Nine Inch Nails and Coldplay have appeared as headline acts and, while the 2006 line-up has not been announced, something special can be guaranteed. As a taster for the curious, Coachella - a compilation concert film packed with acts including the White Stripes and Pixies - was released in January.
Some of the state's most stirring natural wonders are within easy reach. Best known is the Joshua Tree National Monument, a huge preserve named after its unique population of giant yuccas that got their name from pioneers who likened them to Joshua in the wilderness raising his arms to heaven.
Looking skyward, especially at night, is a rewarding experience. The stars are often complemented by meteorite showers and, at least once in recent memory, by an extraordinary appearance of the Northern Lights.
Joshua Tree offers some of the best rock climbing in the region, stunning views and hikes, and, in the spring, when it puts on a breathtaking show of wild flowers, weekend traffic jams to rival those of Los Angeles.
Weekdays, as during last spring's blooming (the best locals can remember), are much easier.
A trek to the south brings the sightseer to fresh hyper-coloured vistas in the Anza Borrego desert. But truth to tell, a little judicious exploring can bring near-private showings in many places, such as Pioneertown or nearby Pipes Canyon preserve, close to the north-western corner of Joshua Tree.
The displays can be spotty in times of drought but two winters of good rainfall and a handy top-up last summer augur well for the coming season, with fast proliferating wildlife adding to the attractions.
The relative kindness of the climate in the recent past has yielded heavy crops of tortoises, reptiles, hawks, quail, roadrunners and coyotes that can present driving hazards in theprotected areas.
But year in, year out, the region is visited by huge and varied flocks of birds migrating north-south and back again along the Great Pacific Flyway.
They stop off in their millions at the Salton Sea, a giant saline lake close to the border with Mexico, that was once another playground favoured by Hollywood.
In its fashion, the lake may count as one of the man-made wonders of the world. A fudged attempt to divert the Colorado Rover into irrigation in the early 1900s poured trillions of gallons of water into an ancient salt lake bed.
Rapid evaporation since has left former water's edge settlements such as Bombay Beach high and dry, resorts in ruins, and locals and visitors alike subjected to the hair-raising stink that rises when millions of resident fish perish and rot in what the experts call a cyclical "die off".
It is nonetheless a fascinating monument to man's clumsiness, with wildfowl-viewing best from the southern tip and wonderful date milkshakes to be had at every stop, courtesy of the palm growers who cluster near the northern end around the oddball town of Mecca.
Like many small communities in the area, its population is mainly of Mexican origin, which may serve as a reminder to visitors that they are within easy striking distance of the "twin" towns of Calexico on the US side of the border and Mexicali to the south.
Retired "snowbirds" from points north also gather in such places, crossing into Mexico to have their prescriptions filled or their teeth fixed for a fraction of US prices.
If in doubt, tourists should follow any recreational vehicle carrying out-of-state plates and a sign that reads: "If the place is rockin' don't come knockin'."
Christopher Parkes is the FT's correspondent in Los Angeles
ROUND AND ABOUT
The website for the Coachella Festival, www.coachella.com, provides a handy set of directions for visitors, steering them first to Indio, the site of the two-day bash to be held this year on April 29 and 30. Headliners among the 100-plus acts include Depeche Mode and Tool.
Indio’s spot on the Interstate 10 highway puts it within easy driving reach of all the regional attractions, including Palm Springs. Site of a popular film festival (next up in January 2007) it also offers a mini-fest from August 31 to September 6, when cinema air conditioning offers respite from the heat outside.
Heat of a different type will be generated from April 14 to 17, at the renowned White Party for gay revellers (see www.jeffreysanker.com for details).
Half an hour east of Indio, visitors seeking the natural spectacles in the Joshua Tree National Monument can gain access through Cottonwood Springs Road, and perhaps overshoot by a minute of two for a stop at the quaint General Patton museum, dedicated to the soldiers who trained in desert warfare nearby during the second world war.
Cottonwood Springs Road bisects Joshua Tree north to south, and intersects on the north side with the town of 29 Palms - home to a vast Marine base, and a dedicated artist community - on State Highway 62.
A turn west on the 62, leads to the town of Joshua Tree, popular with adherents to the oddball mythology surrounding Gram Parsons, the nascent rock star who died there in 1973.
Further east lies Yucca Valley, distinguished on its west side by its big-box stores, and in its “old town” centre by antiques stores. From here, five miles up Pioneertown Road, travellers will encounter spectacular split-boulder rock formations, open landscape and flowers in the spring.
Forty minutes west on the 62 is the junction with Indian Avenue, which leads directly back to Palm Springs. Roadside diversions include a vast array of wind turbines and natural spa facilities in Desert Hot Springs.
