By Karen Pearlman

April 25, 2025 (San Diego’s East County  – The Anza-Borrego Desert in inland San Diego County is captivating with its beauty and expansiveness, humbling and powerful in its quietness. A landscape of extremes -- sun-scorched earth and hidden blooms, rugged canyons carved by time, and sudden spring wildflowers when the rain gods have been kind -- the desert has a raw quality that strips everything down to the essentials of light, shadow, stone and sky.

Our desert region includes Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, famous for its spring wildflowers and rugged terrain; the city of Borrego Springs, the nation’s first “Dark Sky” community and ideal for stargazing; Agua Caliente State Park, known for its thermal pools; Ocotillo Wells, a wildly popular draw for off-road vehicles; and Jacumba Hot Springs, a town that has reinvented itself and become a destination on its own merits.