Desert beauty.

Who says you have to sacrifice luxury to have a true outdoor adventure? Join us on five spring getaways set in the deserts of North America--from zooming in a mini convertible across Baja California to trekking through the high desert of New Mexico With your own personal llama. We bookend each trip with lavish spa treatments and gay happy hours, making for the perfect yin-and-yang vacation of sweat, and serenity. Our adventure begins, of course, in the gayest spot of all.

Palm Springs

The Cahuilla Indians considered the original hot springs in the area sacred, and locals will tell you there's one swimming pool to every four residents. It's said that Marilyn Monroe's career was launched here, in mermaid fashion, when she was spotted lounging at the pool of the Hollywood-heavy Racquet Club in 1948. Palm Springs, Calif., as its name will tell you, is all about water in the desert--an opulent oasis of both healing and decadence just a two-hour drive from Los Angeles (OK, four with traffic). Sumptuous outdoor spas dot the area like blue jewels glittering in the white-hot sun, tempting wayfarers to come and abide in complete relaxation. No wonder so many burned-out celebrities end up at the nearby Betty Ford Center. Where else can merely hanging out be so natural?

Palm Springs and its sister cities, Cathedral City, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, La Quinta, and Rancho Mirage, lie within the Coachella Valley, bordered by the Mojave Desert and fortressed by the imposing San Jacinto Mountains. The area's natural setting is hard to overlook. About a 45-minute drive from downtown Palm Springs is the mystical and monumental Joshua Tree National Park, claiming over half a million acres. Looking like a joint venture between Dr. Seuss and a team of Martians, the park has bizarre rock sculptures rising from the desert floor, curlicue cacti, and a rich, earthy color palette of red, orange, and yellow. Among the Southwest's earliest peoples, the Pinto hunted here right after the last ice age. Today; Joshua Tree is world-renowned among rock climbers for the accessible routes it offers up its strange curved boulders.

It's this impressive geographical barrier of desert and mountains that has made Palm Springs a refuge for the frolics and follies of the rich and famous since the 1930s. At its zenith of Hollywood popularity, from the '40s to the early '60s, stars came here to let their hair down, often in depraved and wanton ways they could never get away with in Los Angeles. Palm Springs was sexually liberated years before the sexual revolution. Gay and bisexual stars flocked here to flee the Hollywood paparazzi. Here Errol Flynn built the mansion he dubbed the Normandy in 1943 and lined its pool with bronzed young men. Gloria Swanson was frequently spotted at Desert Knight, the town's first lesbian hotel. Liberace was a Palm Springs fixture from 1952 until his death from AIDS complications in 1987. Orgies at his local estate, "the Cloisters," were legendary--with a swimming pool-size Jacuzzi, mirrored ceilings and walls, and pornographic wallpaper. Rock Hudson also threw huge gay parties in Palm Springs and lived here with two of his long-term lovers in a virtually out fashion. Later Rock's personal secretary Mark Miller tried to hide him here when he was dying of AIDS. Even shady preacher Jim Bakker could be spotted whooping it up at any number of the town's gay bars before his fall from grace in 1987 (while Tammy could be seen shopping for false eyelashes all around town).

And it wasn't just famous queers who came here to let it all hang out. Nowadays, the city is said to have a gay population seven times the national average (a higher concentration than that of San Francisco). Palm Springs boasts 28 gay resorts, with another three in neighboring Cathedral City. All but one are clothing-optional, and most are secluded compounds built around a courtyard pool Each caters to a slightly different slice of the gay world--from leather to bears to couples to aficionados of mid-century design to those seeking luxe spa treatments.

Ironically, many of the early (and now closed) gay resorts had Hollywood connections: The Desert Palms Inn was where the 1963 film Palm Springs Weekend was filmed, starring pretty boy Troy Donahue. And Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's estate morphed into the massive New Lost World in 1982, complete with male burlesque shows.

After a long decline during the '70s and '80s, Palm Springs reclaimed its tiara of glamour in the late '90s when its wealth of vintage mid-century architecture came to the attention of the design world via a flurry of books and articles. The unruly spring breakers who once trashed its streets are long gone. Meanwhile, ever more art galleries and tony boutiques open, world-class restaurants abound, and historic hotels are renovated at a brisk clip.

In the 21st century, under the leadership of gay African American mayor Ron Oden, this desert retreat continues to play its role as a refuge from the real world. "There has always been an air of illusion about the place. Palm Springs is a mirage," states out author and resident Ray Mungo in his dirt-dishing Palm Springs Babylon. And be it out-of-this-world nature or luxurious escapism, the mirage still delivers in spades.