Who doesn’t love a starry night?
📍 Anza-Borrego State Park
🚙 107 miles
🏕️ Camping, hiking, stargazing & off-roading
🥾 11 miles
Favorite moment: Kicking back by the campfire beneath the Milky Way.
Sometimes all you need is a couple of days in the desert, a camera, and a willingness to see where the road takes you.
This adventure brought us to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, a place where rugged mountains, wide-open landscapes, and endless desert skies make it easy to forget about everything waiting back home. We had a few places we wanted to explore, but as usual, some of the best moments were the ones we hadn't planned.
After getting settled at camp, we walked over to the park's Visitor Center to learn a little more about the area. There's something fascinating about the desert. At first glance, it can seem empty and unforgiving, but the more you learn about it, the more you realize just how much life, history, and natural beauty are tucked into those seemingly barren landscapes.
From there, we headed up the Panoramic Overlook Trail. The views were worth the effort, even if we didn't quite make it to the end. We completed about three-quarters of the trail before my apparently never-healing ankle decided it had other plans. LOL! Sometimes you have to admit defeat, even when you're not quite ready to turn around.
Besides, we had an entirely different kind of adventure waiting for us back at camp.
As daylight faded, we got ready for the night's main event: the stars.
Borrego Springs is known for its dark skies, and it certainly didn't disappoint. Away from the city lights, the sky was filled with more stars than you could possibly count. The Milky Way stretched directly overhead, so high in the sky that I had to point my camera almost straight up to capture it.
I spent part of the evening photographing that incredible view. The result captured thousands of stars and the faint, cloudlike structure of the Milky Way running through the darkness.
But as much as I love capturing moments through my camera, sometimes the best thing you can do is simply stop and look. There's something humbling about standing beneath a sky like that. No traffic, no city lights competing with the stars, just the vastness of the universe overhead. It's the kind of experience that makes you realize how much we miss when we forget to look up.
The next morning, we packed up camp and headed out for a little more exploring before making our way home.
Our first stop was the enormous serpent sculpture, part of the collection of metal sculptures scattered throughout the Borrego Springs desert. There's something delightfully unexpected about driving through the desert and coming across a giant metal serpent rising out of the sand. It's definitely not something you see every day!
From there, we set our sights on Font's Point.
Of course, getting there meant leaving the pavement behind, which is half the fun when you're driving a truck built for a little adventure. We made our way along the sandy desert road, surrounded by wide-open scenery, until we reached one of the most spectacular viewpoints in the area.
Looking out over the Borrego Badlands is almost like looking at another planet. The landscape stretches for miles, filled with deeply carved ridges, winding washes, and layers of earth shaped by thousands of years of erosion. It's rugged, beautiful, and a reminder that nature doesn't need much help creating something extraordinary.
But we weren't finished yet.
Our next destination was The Slot, another of Anza-Borrego's remarkable natural formations. That meant a little more off-roading, a little more dust, and one particularly memorable hill. You know that moment when you look at something ahead of you and think, "Do we really want to do this?"
Yeah. That was us. Neither of us was particularly excited about tackling that hill, but we decided to give it a shot. And we made it! Sometimes the adventures you remember most aren't the ones you planned. They're the moments when you're a little unsure, maybe even a little nervous, but you keep going and discover that you can handle more than you thought.
Eventually, we made our way back to the truck, and by then, lunch was sounding like a pretty fantastic idea.
We headed into Borrego Springs for a bite to eat before beginning the drive home. After hiking, camping, photographing the Milky Way, exploring the badlands, and tackling a few dusty roads, we'd managed to pack quite a bit into two days. And somehow, that's exactly what made this trip so much fun.
There's a special kind of freedom that comes with getting out of town, leaving the pavement behind, and spending a little time somewhere the world feels bigger and life moves a little slower. Some moments challenge you, some make you laugh, and others leave you standing in complete silence, staring up at the stars.
This adventure gave us a little of everything. My ankle might have a different opinion, but I'd do it all again.
Thanks for journeying with me!
~ Bridget
