How big is Anza-Borrego Desert State Park?

More than 600,000 acres, or roughly 1,000 square miles. It is the largest state park in California and the third largest in the United States, spanning parts of San Diego, Riverside and Imperial counties.

How much does it cost to enter Anza-Borrego?

Day use is $10 per vehicle, collected at the Visitor Center, developed campgrounds and several popular trailheads including The Slot and Hellhole Canyon. The park has no entrance gates and much of it can be accessed without a fee.

When is wildflower season at Anza-Borrego?

Annual wildflowers can appear from January through mid-April, with peak bloom most often between late February and early April. Timing varies year to year based on rainfall and temperature.

Is Anza-Borrego a Dark Sky Park?

Yes. The park was designated an International Dark Sky Park in 2018 at Silver tier. Borrego Springs, the town at its center, has been an International Dark Sky Community since 2009, the first in California.

Do I need four-wheel drive at Anza-Borrego?

Not for the paved roads, the Visitor Center or the main campgrounds. The vast majority of the park's roughly 500 miles of dirt roads do require a high-clearance four-wheel-drive vehicle.

Is Anza-Borrego Desert State Park open at night?

Yes, the park is open 24 hours a day, year-round. The Visitor Center is open daily 9am to 5pm October through May, and weekends and holidays only June through September.

Explore Always • June 2, 2026

The California Resort City Built for 40,000 People… That Never Came

By: Explore Always on YouTube

Salton City is one of the strangest places in California — a planned waterfront resort city built for 40,000 people along the Salton Sea that never fully materialized.

Today, hundreds of miles of paved streets stretch across the desert in California’s Imperial Valley, but most of the houses were never built.

In this documentary, we explore the fascinating history of Salton City and the Salton Sea — from the accidental creation of the lake in 1905 to the ambitious development plans of the 1950s and 1960s that promised to turn the area into a thriving desert resort.

Developers once envisioned a “California Riviera” here, complete with marinas, golf courses, shopping centers, and more than 25,000 residential lots. At the time, the Salton Sea was attracting millions of visitors each year for boating, water skiing, and weekend recreation.

But the dream didn’t last.

Environmental changes, rising salinity, and a shrinking shoreline gradually drove tourists away — leaving behind one of the most unusual landscapes in the American West: a suburban grid built for a city that never arrived.

Join me as we explore the history, ambition, and environmental reality behind Salton City — the California city that almost was.

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