The Ruins of Bombay Beach

When researching fun road trip destinations in Southern California, we came across Bombay Beach on the Internet and it immediately caught our attention with the photos of the ruins. It was such a weird place to visit, but we decided to plan a trip here as weirdness does not stop us from being curious.

Salton Sea

Our first stop is Salton Sea Visitor Center. Salton Sea a large salt lake that sits below sea level and is located in the middle of the desert area. The specific data and history can be viewed in Wikipedia.

You will know you’re heading to the right place as the pungent smell from salt water gets stronger and stronger, but if you’re not so sensitive to the smell, it is actually a fun and relaxing place to walk around. The entire “beach” is not formed by sand, but by countless of barnacles that came with outside boats and planes, and they continued to propagate wildly here because there was no natural predator for them.

Bombay Beach

Driving along Salton Sea towards south is our destination, Bombay Beach, a place where it was once a famous vacation spot and a desert resort town, but now very much abandoned and half buried in mud. Bombay Beach is actually the lowest community in America, located well below sea level.

The smell here is also bad, but tolerable. You may come across rotten fish and dead birds here and there, as well as different kinds of ruins all over the place. But when we arrived here, we were genuinely surprised by how many people were visiting this “junk yard” and how diverse the visitors were. Guess the curiosity is universal!

Bombay Beach Drive-In

This is a separate but very nearby yard of antique junk cars, it used to be a drive-in movie theater, and now a famous photo spot for weirdos like us. Rusted, discolored, but unique and artistic!