After hours of driving through the remote and redundant high-desert landscape, Angelenos eager to reach the boundaries of Death Valley often zip straight past two gems on the route to the fabled national park. But the historic towns of Shoshone and Tecopa have more to offer than gas tank refills and places to rest one’s head for the night.

Established more than a century ago, both communities have moved beyond their early histories as railroad towns and rich mining districts and are transitioning into ecotourism and hot springs resort destinations. They’re rife with charming businesses, eateries, wildlife hotspots and a surprising amount of hidden water sources.

Still, these places are far from chic or trendy — and that’s the way the locals like it. Out here, there are no stoplights, cell service is practically nonexistent and the freedom is palpable.

Located halfway between Barstow and Las Vegas along California Highway 127, Shoshone is a one-road town that, despite a population of only 22 people in 2020, boasts a post office, general store, gas station and gift shop, inn, local museum, restaurant and saloon, pond, village office, RV park, bodywork clinic, cemetery, a K-12 school with a 13-person student body and a single-airstrip airport that gets about 58 flights per month. And it’s home to a landmark piece of architecture: a sleek home built by the Midcentury Modernist architect Richard Neutra.

Since its construction in the 1950s, the house has served as the home of Susan Sorrells. She is the granddaughter of Charles Brown, a Shoshone pioneer whose name is printed all over the small community, appearing on the sidings of dilapidated garages and on the menu at the local restaurant. Now she owns the village along with several thousand surrounding acres. For the last few decades, Sorrells has revitalized the region’s endemic wildlife and ecological features, such as the Shoshone Spring, by inviting scientists and researchers from universities to help nurse the environment back to health. The result has been a resurgence in endangered and formerly extinct animals, such as the Shoshone pupfish and Amargosa vole, which in turn has made the village a popular locale for bird-watchers and nature enthusiasts.

Water is also a big draw in nearby Tecopa, a few miles south of Shoshone along the Old Spanish Trail, a historic trade route that connected Santa Fe, N.M., to Los Angeles. The community of roughly 169 people is located in the basin of the prehistoric Lake Tecopa, where extensive fossils and footprints from mammoths, flamingos, muskrat and extinct genus of camels and horses have been unearthed and are now on view at the Shoshone Museum.

The once-marshy terrain is also host to a plethora of minerals and salts, which are the source of much confusion among tourists who often observe what appears to be freshly fallen snow on the ground. (Actually, it is underground salts that have risen to the surface through capillary action that create this snowlike white crust.) Gone are the region’s lakes, but Tecopa is rife with hot springs heated by subsurface magma.

Today the area boasts four hot spring businesses, each offering different perks, from on-site sleeping accommodations to bathhouses separated by gender. After a soak, you can head to the town’s microbrewery and one of the only vegan eateries for miles.

From the clear open skies to the petrichor-like smells of underground waters spilling onto the land, Shoshone and Tecopa are far from the desolate backwaters some might mistake them to be.

So the next time someone mentions Death Valley, remember there is more to do in the region beyond lacing up a pair of hiking boots and slinging a CamelBak over your shoulders. If you happen to pass this way on your drive, lighten up on that gas pedal, flip on the turn indicator and make a stop at one of these unique places.

Jessie Schiewe is a freelance journalist.