Blythe, CA

Blythe is a small city in Riverside County, California, perched along the Colorado River where it forms the border with Arizona. With a population of approximately 18,000, it functions primarily as a highway waypoint and a service center for the surrounding Palo Verde Valley's farming communities. The city is best known as a stopping point for travelers on Interstate 10, sitting roughly 220 miles east of Los Angeles (about a 3.5 to 4-hour drive) and around 150 miles west of Phoenix, Arizona, and as a quiet gateway to Colorado River recreation on the edge of the eastern Sonoran Desert.

North of the city, scattered across the open desert floor, lie the Blythe Intaglios, a remarkable group of large geoglyphs depicting human and animal figures. Created centuries ago by indigenous peoples of the lower Colorado River region, the figures are most easily appreciated from the air or from an elevated viewpoint along the access road, about 15 miles north of town. The site offers a quiet, almost otherworldly experience and draws a small but steady stream of visitors interested in archaeology, desert history, and the broader story of the Colorado River corridor.

The Colorado River itself, which laps at Blythe's eastern edge, is the area's most accessible natural draw. Anglers, boaters, and casual strollers use the riverfront parks and small marinas in town, where visitors can fish, swim, or simply watch the sun set over the water from the California side. Just south of the city, the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge protects a ribbon of wetland and backwater habitat along the river. Roughly a 30-minute drive from downtown, the refuge is a good place to spot migratory waterfowl, herons, and the occasional desert bighorn sheep against a wide desert sky.

A bit further afield, Lake Havasu City and its famously transplanted London Bridge sit about 100 miles to the north in western Arizona, drawing boaters, houseboaters, and weekend visitors year-round. The wide desert that surrounds Blythe itself offers its own quiet rewards, from broad horizons and dark night skies to a strong sense of the Southwest that has become harder to find in busier California destinations.

For short-term rental investors, Blythe offers a compelling mix of dependable traveler traffic, relatively low property costs, and proximity to a genuinely distinctive set of natural and historical sites. Its position as a halfway point between two major Sun Belt metros, paired with the steady draw of the Colorado River and the quiet mystery of the Intaglios, gives the town a year-round, if modest, visitor base that rewards hosts who lean into the area's road-trip culture and desert personality.