Palm Springs and its neighbors have long held an allure that is hard to explain if you have never been there. The scenery gradually shifts from urban sprawl to sand, mountains and giant wind turbines as you turn off the freeway and into a desert Shangri-La. I like old, and to me Palm Springs is one of the most magical places in the world. I spent every weekend for about three years there and came to love Palm Springs for its perfectly preserved ’50s architecture as well as the old geezers who drove around in golf carts with grilles shaped like Rolls-Royces and dressed in vibrant colors not known to nature.

To those who prefer new and more low-key, there are the golf communities of Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Indian Wells and La Quinta strung out down the Coachella Valley as one long strand of fairways and date palms.

The area’s renowned midcentury modern houses may have garnered all the acclaim, but the gated golf communities are where most vacation home owners want to settle. And so the desert is heating up in other ways, as retirees become full-time residents and a new wave of owners descends from Southern California as well as San Francisco and Seattle, bringing traffic jams and building bigger air-conditioned Mediterranean-style mansions.

I have only been to Scottsdale a couple of times, but I vividly recall the same magical blush of purples and reds that brush the mountains at sunset, the same clarity of light and air, and the looming silhouettes of saguaros at dusk. I was also struck by the quality of the architecture, which seemed more forward thinking, aesthetically striking and lighter on the land than anyplace else I have visited in the U.S. lately.

For most people, desert living is seasonal, best experienced from late November through April. There is a well-worn path between Santa Barbara and Palm Springs and between Scottsdale and Santa Fe as residents escape to the beach or higher elevations.

Those who stay year-round shrug off the heat as dry heat and play golf at 6 a.m. Perhaps it’s a good recipe for a long life. I remember thinking, on one of my last frequent trips to Palm Springs, that I had seen my future, and it involved a white Cadillac masquerading as a golf cart.