Best Home Base for the HWY 62 Open Studio Art Tours: Where to Stay Between Studio Stops

By late September, Highway 62 starts doing something it does every fall: garage doors lift, hand-painted signs go up along the shoulder, and for three weekends in October, the stretch of desert running through Joshua Tree, Yucca Valley, and Twentynine Palms turns into one long open house. This year the HWY 62 Open Studio Art Tours 2026 marks its 25th year running — a quarter century of artists opening their own studios to strangers, no gallery walls in between.

What the Tour Actually Is

The HWY 62 Open Studio Art Tours is a self-guided tour. There's no bus, no set order, no ticket gate — you get a printed catalog, a map, and some digital tools, and you decide which studios to chase down and in what order. This year more than 200 artist studios are participating across the Morongo Basin, working in painting, sculpture, photography, ceramics, fiber art, and assemblage. You could spend one afternoon and see five studios, or spend all three weekends and still not see them all.

Three Weekends, Not One

The tour runs across three separate weekends in October 2026, each 10am to 5pm:

• Weekend 1: October 3–4 — the opening weekend, and it's nearly here.

• Weekend 2: October 10–11 — still plenty of time to plan a trip around this one.

• Weekend 3: October 17–18 — the closing weekend, with the most lead time left to book.

If Weekend 1 catches you without a plan, that's alright — this is a three-weekend event, and Weekends 2 and 3 are just as real a reason to make the drive.

Twenty-Five Years in the High Desert

According to Palm Springs Life's coverage of the tour's 25th-anniversary year, the event has grown into one of the defining art traditions of the high desert, with well over 200 studios now taking part. Sculptor Cybele Rowe, one of the participating artists quoted in that same feature, put it simply: “My studio is the desert floor.” It's a good description of the whole tour — artists working in converted garages, backyard sheds, and open desert lots, not in anything that looks like a conventional gallery.

Why Stay at Wanderlust Between Studio Stops

A tour like this is built around driving — from one town to the next, one studio to the next, all day, for however many of the three weekends you choose to run. What you want at the end of a day like that isn't another stop on the itinerary. It's somewhere quiet to actually land.

Wanderlust Joshua Tree sits on five private acres with wide-open desert views and no shared walls or common areas — a private home, not a hotel room, with a fire pit to sit around once the studios have closed for the day. Whether you're coming for one weekend of the tour or planning around all three, it's a home base built for exactly this kind of trip: out exploring all day, and genuinely quiet once you're back.

Plan Your Stay

The HWY 62 Open Studio Art Tours 2026 runs October 3–4, 10–11, and 17–18, across Joshua Tree, Yucca Valley, and Twentynine Palms. Book your stay at Wanderlust Joshua Tree and build your weekend — or all three — around it.

Check Dates → wanderlust-joshuatree.com

Sources: HWY 62 Open Studio Art Tours official registration (Morongo Basin Cultural Arts Council, hwy62arttours.org) for dates, towns, and format. Palm Springs Life, “Hwy 62 Art Tours Celebrates 25 Years in the High Desert” (published September 28, 2026, byline Site Staff) for the anniversary framing, the 200+ studio count, and the sculptor quote.