Travel Agenda: Coming up in California

Tomorrow: Check into The Saguaro hotel in ritzy Palm Springs. The former Holiday Inn property, pictured, has been given a sleek renovation by Californian-based hotel group Joie de Vivre. It now features a pool, tequila bar and tapas restaurant, with a vivid colour palette that contrasts with the stark landscape of the Coachella Valley (thesaguaro.com).

Meanwhile, the Noise Pop Festival is taking place in San Francisco this weekend with a performance from Atlas Sound today and The Dodos closing the event tomorrow (noisepop.com).

This week: The birth of John Steinbeck is celebrated in his hometown of Salinas tomorrow at the National Steinbeck Center with free music, storytelling and children's activities (steinbeck.org). Over in the High Sierra region, the SnowFest winter carnival gets under way in North Lake Tahoe on Friday with ice-cream eating contests, fireworks, torchlight parades and a snow palace, until 11 March (tahoesnowfestival.com).

In The Diary: In Orange Country, the Laguna Beach Uncorked festival will see a gathering of 50 restaurants and wineries celebrate local produce at the city's Festival of Arts venue on 10 March (foapom.com). Or, for those of a literary persuasion, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books has authors taking part in free readings, recitals and panel discussions on the city's University of Southern California campus between 21-22 April (events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks).

Finally, witness one of California's favourite pastimes in Santa Cruz at the Big Stick Logjam Surfing Contest, near Pleasure Point between 28-29 April. The city has just been designated as a World Surfing Reserve this year, with the official dedication ceremony due to happen on the Saturday (bigsticksurfing.org).