The Ultimate Joshua Tree National Park Travel Guide
Those iconic bulbous boulders, lucid skies, and namesake trees are mere backdrops to a Californian desert playground filled with jaw-dropping vistas, dynamic hiking trails, and that famous grippy rock. Here鈥檚 everything you need to know to explore it.
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It鈥檚 embarrassing to admit, but ten years ago, when I first started going to Joshua Tree National Park, I got lost. I鈥檇 been shuffling along, marveling at the sheer magnitude of the fractured monzogranite towers, when I realized that the trail had vanished. I clambered atop the nearest pile of boulders听and took stock of the situation: an endless, undulating desert sparkling in the midday heat鈥攁nd thankfully, a familiar beige ribbon in the not too far distance.
I offer this anecdote not to dissuade a visit, but to say that Joshua Tree is so mesmerizing that it鈥檚 pretty easy to get turned around out there. It鈥檚 also pretty听damn vast. Originally home to the Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, Mojave,听Serrano, and Western Shoshone peoples, the park contains nearly 800,000 acres, more than a third of them designated wilderness, and many of those trail-free, a siren call to anyone who might enjoy a little desert solitaire.
But this is no lonely swath of sand. The whole place is riddled with snaking canyons, hidden oases, and bulbous rocks听hosting a variety of wildlife, including bobcats, coyotes, jackrabbits, and the threatened Mojave desert tortoise. In addition, the Southern California park receives nearly three million visitors a year who fan across its dual regions鈥攖he more arid and remote Colorado Desert, to the east, and the higher-elevation and more heavily developed听Mojave Desert, to the west. The latter is where you鈥檒l find the highest concentration听of the park鈥檚 Seussian namesake, which is not a tree at all听but a monocot, a flowering plant that鈥檚 related to yucca.
What You Need to Know Before Visiting Joshua Tree National Park

Beware the spiky chollas.
During one of my earliest Joshua Tree hikes, a spindly segment of pencil cholla pierced through the thick rubber of my boot soles. Not long after plucking it out, I accidentally kicked a hefty wad of Teddybear听Cholla into my tender calf. This is to say: pay attention to your surroundings. Long sleeves and pants hel