I first stumbled on Bombay Beach in October 2020. And, to be clear, it really is the type of place you have to stumble on, as opposed to seek out.

As a still freshly minted Californian, my 2020 was marked by what felt like an endless amount of road trips. That sweet combination of a remote tech job, a naiveté to the expansiveness of the American West, and a handful of friends who shared my penchant towards wanderlust led to a number of incredible experiences.

It was on one of my multi-week ventures — a winding journey from El Paso to San Francisco — that I discovered my newest cultural fascination: Bombay Beach.

Honestly, I’m not exactly sure how I found the Airbnb. I had driven right past Bombay Beach before, not so much as batting an eye, en route from L.A. to take pictures at the aesthetically pleasing and Instagram-popular Salvation Mountain. But somehow, coming up from Calexico — having already traversed the strange landscape of the Southwest, learned what “The Thing” is (anyone who’s driven from El Paso to Tucson knows), and visited the Center of the World (who knew it was right outside of Yuma?!) — somehow Bombay Beach was the natural place to rest our heads for the night.

To the untrained eye, Bombay Beach is not much more than a half mile by half mile decaying trailer park. But if you squint and look at it in just the right light (I suggest sunset into dusk), Bombay Beach is one of the most inspiring places you’ll ever lay your eyes on.

The remnants of Burning Man projects past and carefully constructed homages to the town’s contradictions are scattered about an oddly organized grid nestled within the open expanse of the desert: a former colorful resort town left near-abandoned after ecological disaster; a thriving community ecosystem set in a barren, harsh environment; a beautiful countercultural revitalization on the shores of a toxic, evaporating lake that harms the lungs of its own residents. Even on that still, wonderfully warm October day when the town was eerily quiet, the pulse of Bombay Beach was palpable. This town is delightfully strange and peculiar in all the right ways.

I grew up in a place that could not be more different. In some ways, it feels like I was raised in the epicenter of rigidity and conventional social structure — by 6th grade, my neatly uniformed self was already stressed about standardized tests to get into the prep school for which I was a legacy. There was an inherent pressure to be impressive, but only in certain traditional or scholastic ways: politics, law, journalism, public service. I always struggled with the feeling that I was just… different. Not meant to be here.

The desert provides this indifference to all of that, a leveling effect across class and stripping down such unnecessary things as status. And there, on the shores of the Salton Sea, I had stumbled on a town that may have been just as different as me. Bombay Beach became the beacon of my countercultural awakening. It serves as proof that there are so many different ways to live your life, and that the people who like to question the status quo have a way of finding each other.

On that first October day, I learned of the Bombay Beach Biennale through glossy images memorialized in a book inside Tao Ruspoli's artfully curated conceptual art piece/abode, "The Institute." This happening — NOT a festival, don't even THINK about calling it a festival!!—begs the question: what if highbrow culture (opera, fine art, philosophy lectures, ballet) met Burner ethos in a town fraught with human and ecological disaster? It felt like exactly the type of space I needed to be in. But with dates shrouded in secrecy and spread only by word of mouth, and my home base further up the coast in Haight Ashbury, when would I actually make it to this spiritual homecoming?

Over the following years I kept returning to Bombay Beach, introducing friends and family whose reactions ranged from "Ew, this place smells and is scary" to "ooooh… I get it." I dove into the history: how bizarre is it that 18 months of continuous flooding in the early 1900s, caused by a human construction breach of a canal project, could create the largest lake in the state (move aside, Tahoe), which attracted opportunistic developers in the 1950s to brand it "California's Riviera"? Eventually I came to focus more on its present: who is attracted to living here now? How is this place home to both retirees and young hipsters, across all socio-economic backgrounds? Thank goodness I'm not a cat or curiosity very likely would have been my demise.

Finally, in March 2026, the stars aligned and I made it to the Bombay Beach Biennale.

The weekend was weird and wonderful, don’t get me wrong — but better than the event itself was the road to getting there. For weeks leading up to it, artists start to emerge for “Biennale Season.” Before the crowds descend upon the town — some of whom clearly do not take the time to appreciate the beautifully constructed ecosystem they flock to do psychedelics in — the community takes shape. And it’s that community that makes this place so special.

I came to the Biennale to explore the art, take in some philosophy talks, and hopefully connect with like-minded wandering souls who felt called to the same peculiar place. I did all that and more — poking my head into every gallery I could find, playing the tambourine in Cafe Bosna, taking in foreign short films and a magnificent Italian opera duet, climbing onto (or into) somewhat sturdy looking installations. It was awesome. And yet, somehow, the weekend of frolicking did not feel as deep or rewarding as everything that happens in this space outside of its busiest weekend of the year. What really surprised me was the spirit of the town itself: alive, well, and co-creating in this structurally uncertain place, a town with an increasingly precarious future as the shoreline recedes year by year.

Somewhere in the midst of the weekend, I ran into one of the event organizers against the side of a trailer covered in colorful butterfly-inspired sculptures— Bombay Beach is one of those places where every resident's idiosyncrasies and peculiarities don't just come to life, but get celebrated. I recognized her from the rabbit holes I had gone down and hours of parasocial discovery while researching this place from afar. I stopped her to compliment her on the immense effort that had gone into building something so special and opening it up to the public. She thanked me, and we exchanged pleasantries. She asked how I had found out about it and decided to come. (I'll spare you the elevator pitch I gave her; if you're still reading, you already know the story.)

“Ahhhh… you followed the thread!” she replied.

Now maybe I'm wired more curiously than the average Joe… but life sometimes feels like an intricately woven tapestry of threads, and following them is what keeps it interesting and makes it beautiful. By nature I'm ambitious and strategic, sometimes to a fault. But I'm also deeply intentional about knowing myself well enough to recognize when inspiration strikes or when something is pulling at me, and being brave enough to follow it.

I’ve found that often the most meaningful things are the result of accidents or serendipity, like stumbling on Bombay Beach that first year on a road trip detour that turned into the destination. It’s funny to think how close I came to never knowing this place existed. What if I had just skipped the stop and gone straight to Yucca Valley?

Sometimes you don't even know you're following a thread until you're already somewhere unexpected, looking back at the series of small, seemingly inconsequential decisions that got you there. You can't schedule curiosity into a tightly packed itinerary, but you can let it guide you.

How many other "Bombay Beaches" am I driving past while sticking to the road I'm supposed to be on? How many folks have followed their own thread to some unexpected, deeply personal place of self-discovery? The people who end up in places like this are the ones who left room for serendipity and held enough openness in their self-concept to let the detour become the destination. As we age, we often find ourselves in boxes of our own making, with responsibilities that have no patience for that kind of wandering. But I think the most interesting lives and spaces exist because some curious collective of people refuses to stay on the prescribed road.