Things to do / Travel Guide
The California Desert region is a vast area that befits the grandeur and magnificence of the state, spreading like a blanket of desert and mountains between Los Angeles and Las Vegas and covering a very wide swathe of land from the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the north, to the border with Mexico in the south. It runs from north to south for nearly 400 miles from Calexico near the Mexican border to around the town of Bishop in the lower Sierra Nevada mountain range. At its widest point, the region stretches about 200 miles from the desert west of Barstow, east to the border of Nevada.
The area south and east of Palm Springs that covers the valley of the Colorado River is known as the “low desert,” an extension of the greater Sonora Desert, which covers parts of Arizona and Mexico. This area includes the Salton Sea and the one-of-a-kind landscapes of Joshua Tree National Park.
North of this area, you'll enter the Mojave Desert, or as it's also known, “the high desert.” Averaging altitudes of around 2,000 feet, this area also includes Death Valley National Park, home of Badwater, the lowest spot in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level.
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