What to do and see in California Desert, California Desert: The Best Specialty Museums

The Imperial Valley Desert Museum preserves, interprets, and celebrates the Imperial desert, its natural history, and the history of the indigenous peoples who have inhabited it. We offer a variety of ever-changing exhibits that are fully interactive and suited for all ages. We boast a full events calendar, geared towards children and adults alike. Located immediately off I-8 at Ocotillo, we invite you to come explore the desert with us!

After a year-long journey across North America, the Dream Wanderer mobile virtual reality gallery has found a new home in the high desert just outside Joshua Tree. You’re invited to climb aboard and immerse yourself in a “powerful and singular” virtual reality exploration of vivid dreaming, the afterlife, and spiritualism. The Austin Chronicle described it as "a virtual reality experience that’s on the weirder side of sublime, that’s eerie and personal and arranged like a beautiful immersive installation" and VICE Magazine found that it "shares a spirit with the 'happenings' staged by artists in the 1960s." So far, the Dream Wanderer has exhibited for over 25,000 people, including: art fair denizens in Miami and Mexico City; drunks, punks, and monks in New Orleans; surfers in Oaxaca; movie stars in Los Angeles; technophiles at Moogfest; poutine lovers in Ontario & Quebec; and dirt ravers at Burning Man. Will you be next?

Rated by CNN as one of the top 14 Air Museums in the World. This facility Gives visitors an up-close look at the legendary fighters and bombers of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam.

A re-creation of a general store during the 1930s and early 1940s, this unique museum displays the original fixtures, hardware, medicines and products of that period.

The Integratron structure is a machine that was the creation of George Van Tassel, and is based on the design of Moses' Tabernacle, and the science of Nikola Tesla. This one-of-a-kind building is a 38-foot high, 55-foot diameter, non-metallic structure originally designed as a rejuvenation and time machine. Today, it is the only all-wood, acoustically perfect sound chamber in the U.S.

The Museum of Western Film History is America’s leading institution of Western Film history that pays tribute to the legendary heroes and heroines of America’s West. Founded in 2006 the museum, located in Lone Pine, Ca, collects, preserves and exhibits a broad and diverse collection of western film memorabilia associated with the American western film genre. Film programs, artifact preservation and exhibits, including interpretive projects and displays, provide narrative support for the movies, actors, directors, producers and most importantly, the landscapes that served as a canvas for their stories. In addition, the Museum supports the annual Lone Pine Film Festival on Columbus Day weekend. The Festival features screenings, panels, western authors, entertainment and guided Alabama Hills tours of movie site locations where Hollywood’s biggest western stars performed and of the landscape that has been the venue to over 700 films and 1000 television commercials.

This is a small non-profit exotic feline breeding center about 1 hour north of Los Angeles which houses over 70 exotic endangered cats.

Twentynine Palms Historical Society owns and operates the Old Schoolhouse Museum. Housed in the oldest public building in the area, it provides visitors a chance to experience a 1920s-era schoolroom, view artifacts and exhibits pertaining to the history of Twentynine Palms and surrounding desert, browse and purchase local books, gifts, and more.