Arriving at Imperial County Airport in Imperial Valley places you close to it all, with several nearby cities just a short drive away. The Imperial Valley is a wide farming basin in the southeast corner of California, below sea level and ringed by desert mountains, where winter lettuce fields run to the horizon and Mexicali sits just across the border. The feel is sunny, hard-working, and bilingual, with rodeos, date palms, and excellent Mexican food on both sides of the line.

Standout experiences around the Imperial Valley: - Climb the Imperial Sand Dunes at Glamis, where desert scenes for Star Wars were filmed - Visit Salvation Mountain and Slab City near Niland - See the folk art and ruins at Bombay Beach on the Salton Sea - Watch the Brawley Cattle Call rodeo and parade in November - Cross into Mexicali for carne asada tacos and the city's famous Chinese food - Learn the farming story at the Pioneers Museum in Imperial - Eat your way through the Holtville Carrot Festival in February - Spot burrowing owls along the irrigation canals at dusk

The Imperial Valley sits between the mountains and the dunes, with El Centro and Brawley a few minutes from the airport and Calexico and the border 15 minutes south. Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and the metal sculptures of Borrego Springs are about an hour west, with spring wildflowers after wet winters. Yuma is an hour east on the Colorado River, and Jacumba Hot Springs is an hour west toward San Diego. Winter and early spring are the seasons here, when the valley is green and the days are mild. Come for the dunes, stay for the tacos.