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PHOTO COURTESY OF VISITGREATERPALMSPRINGS.COM Taking the Waters G reater Palm Springs has always understood the restorative power of taking time for yourself. Long before the pool parties, golf courses, and midcentury houses with colorful front doors, people came to the Coachella Valley for water, warmth, exercise, and the chance to feel better. Today we call it wellness travel. at history makes September Spa Month feel like such a good fit for Greater Palm Springs. e valley keeps reinventing what wellness means, but people have been coming here to feel better for generations. Hot Springs Have Always Been the Draw Nowhere is that history more tangible than at e Spa at Séc-he in downtown Palm Springs, where the story begins thousands of years ago. Séc-he means "boiling water" in the Cahuilla language and is the sacred hot mineral spring of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. Rainwater and mountain snowmelt collect deep underground, remaining there for approximately 12,000 years before rising through the earth and reaching the surface. e spring was central to tribal life for drinking, bathing, irrigation, and ceremony. By the late 1880s, a bathhouse at Séc-he had become an early tourist attraction in what would eventually become Palm Springs. Before the Racquet Club. Before Sinatra. Before anyone parked a pink Cadillac outside a butterfly-roof house, people were already coming to Palm Springs because of the water. Taking the Waters at Séc-he Today e Spa at Séc-he sits directly over that same spring as part of the Agua Caliente Cultural Plaza. Its defining experience remains the simplest one: getting into the water. For my visit, the morning started with Taking of the Waters, a private soak in one of 22 bathing rooms filled with mineral water drawn directly from the spring. Spa language can get a little breathless about "ancient rituals," but here the ancient part isn't woo-woo chatter. You're literally soaking in it. From there, I moved into a 30-minute zero-sensory flotation session in magnesium-rich water. Within the same morning, I soaked in a spring that has been used here for generations Soaking up the restorative side of Greater Palm Springs BY JON BAILEY detour destinations ranchandcoast.com 98 SEPTEMBER 2026 RANCH & COAST MAGAZINE