Why You Should Check Out The Salton Sea

Why You Should Check Out The Salton Sea

The Salton Sea. It’s not a place that comes up in TripAdvisor’s Top 15 Places to See in California or many other travel lists. It is, however, one of the weirdest, most unique, and interesting places I’ve ever been to.

The Salton Sea used to be a highly popular tourist destination in the 50s and 60s, thanks to man-made dams in the Colorado River flooding for 2 yeas in 1950 and sending the entire river to what used to be the Salton Sink. While popular for a few decades, the Salton Sea has been slowly receding due to evaporation and increasing in salinity. This increase in salinity, combined with agricultural runoff (which does not evaporate), means the Salton Sea grows more inhospitable to life every year.

The Salton Sea/Imperial Valley area allows a glimpse into a once-bustling tourist destination, now fallen to ruin and disrepair. If you’re already taking a tour of Southern California, the Salton Sea is easily accessible. Salton City, the most populated area of the Salton Sea, is only about an hour away from Palm Springs.

The Salton Sea should be easy to integrate into a tour of Southern California. It’s close to Joshua Tree National Park, Coachella, and Palm Springs, which are all worth checking out as well. Plus, it only takes about 2 hours to circumnavigate the “sea”! You can knock it out in a half day while based in Palm Springs or Joshua Tree.

Now that we’ve established that integrating the Salton Sea into your vacation itinerary is pretty easy, let’s dig into why going to the Salton Sea is worth it.

 

It Used to Be a Huge Tourist Destination

Driving around the Salton Sea, you can see lots of signs and indications that this used to be a booming tourist area. In fact, at its peak, the Salton Sea received 1.5 million visitors annually — more yearly visitors than Yosemite!

However, because California’s largest inland lake has not been actively managed, it has slowly dried up over the years. And, despite many demolitions of old buildings, it’s still possible to see remnants of the old Salton Sea.

It’s uniquely sobering to see how quickly a place falls into decay once abandoned. For me, it prompts thoughts of how our major cities would look if we all disappeared (or the population was severely reduced).

For a place that was so popular, it is now virtually abandoned. However, there are still small pockets of people living in the area. During our drive through the Salton Sea, we regularly saw groups of guys on ATVs driving through the terrain.

At one spot, Panorama Drive in Desert Shores, we even saw a parade! That’s right, a parade in the middle of the day on the Saturday. We didn’t stick around long enough to see what it was about

The most “happening” spot I came across was the ARCO/Jack-in-the-Box center in Salton City. It had a full parking lot and the place was bustling with business.

Besides the travel center and a nearby Family Dollar, there’s not much out here in terms of modern conveniences. However, while driving around Salton City, we did have one very interesting discovery…

 

The American Dream is Very Much Alive Out Here!

Who says the American Dream is dead? You can buy land out here for under $5000 a lot! Many of these lots come with power and water already hooked up. Combine that with a cheap, prefab home and assembly, and you could easily have your own hideout in the desert for under $30,000 all-in!

While there’s obviously a ton of reasons not to do this, it’s pretty cool that it’s possible to have your own, honest-to-God place for so little. If you ever decide that you just want to escape from it all, need an inexpensive place to start your home-based business, love off-roading, or just want to cook meth in the desert Walter White-style, then the Salton Sea is a place worth considering going off-the-grid.

Even if you would never consider living in the Salton Sea, there’s more reasons beyond cheap land to check it out.

 

It’s a Really Cool and Unique Place

Before I walked out to take this photo at this abandoned, what-looks-to-be-part-of-an-old dock, I traversed through mud that sank nearly up to my ankle if I wasn’t careful in hot, stinky weather. Additionally, when we got back to my car, it was covered in a cloud of flies, something that happened anywhere we stopped close to the Salton Sea itself.

However, one does not travel out to the Salton Sea for an uplifting experience. The feeling it evokes is something profound, yet hard to nail down. There’s a certain feeling of loss in seeing a place that used to be so full of life as a shell of its former self. Aside from a few small sections of a few areas in Salton City and Desert Shores, the areas surrounding the Salton Sea feels completely desolate. The entire north/east side of the lake has almost no dwellings or signs of human life whatsoever.

Perhaps it’s partially out of a sense of morbid curiosity, but I found the entire experience to be incredibly interesting. Writing this post has helped me realize that I definitely want to go back again. While not at all a normal travel experience, the Salton Sea is definitely worth checking out while you have a chance. Which leads me to my final point…

 

It Won’t Be Here Forever

With environmental conditions growing worse each year, the life-supporting abilities of the Salton Sea diminish. In the 50s and 60s it was home to many different species of fish. These days, it still supports some tilapia, which can tolerate very high salinity levels. However, even these tilapia are beginning to die en masse as farm runoff and salinity levels continue to increase.

Unfortunately, there is currently no solution or plan in place to rehabilitate the Salton Sea. Should the Salton Sea remain consigned to its fate, we will likely see the long, slow decline continue. Asthma attacks and dust storms will continue to remain a public-health problem and grow worse as the lake recedes.

Should you ever have a desire to take a look at this Mad-Max-esque environment, my recommendation is to do it sooner rather than later. The Salton Sea is certainly worth seeing. For me, the experience was a real eye-opener of what can happen when we abandon an area.

Anyways, sorry to end on such a depressing note — I hope this post encourages you to take a trip out to the Salton Sea… it’s a big change of scenery from the LA area and fits in well with a road-trip itinerary including Joshua Tree National Park and Palm Springs.

Any thoughts of your own on the Salton Sea? Let me know below!