Since launching in November 2024, Drag & Fly Tours has welcomed more than 2,500 guests aboard its bus to cruise through storied Palm Springs neighborhoods, scoping out homes that once belonged to Old Hollywood stars and taking in public art while enjoying lively commentary from drag queen tour guides.
“It’s a dazzling sightseeing tour of Palm Springs with a little drag magic sprinkled on top,” says Drag & Fly Tours owner JD Cargill, the face under tour guide Anita Doll’s makeup. “I do, however, like to tell people that Palm Springs has fabulous late-night drag shows where queens go shablam, do the death drop, and duck walk — if you want to see a duck walk on a Drag & Fly Tour, we will take you by the zoo.”
Between scouting new drag queen guides and leading groups himself, Cargill, a former celebrity reporter, has high hopes for the future of the tours. “I thought this was just going to be a fun, entertaining touristy thing to do in Palm Springs,” he says. “What’s really happening is people are connecting in a very emotional way to the queer prideness of it all.”
Why choose to tour Palm Springs?
I love Palm Springs for lots of reasons. I did not move here with Drag & Fly Tours on the mind. I moved here, and then Drag & Fly Tours became the right business to open. I did know I wanted to be a drag queen — a middle-aged wannabe drag queen in Palm Springs. There’s never been a place, ever, in my 48 years on the planet, where I just felt so accepted. Here, I’m normal. That’s why I chose Palm Springs.
What do the tours cover?
Our tour is a 90-minute show, and it’s a dazzling tour through Palm Springs. We take you through five eras of history, so it’s an eras tour. Move over, Taylor Swift! We tell you first about the Agua Caliente tribe and then the founding mothers — Nellie Coffman, Ruth Hardy, Harriet Cody, Cornelia White, and Pearl McCallum McManus. Before they could vote, these women were building little guesthouses, [building Palm Springs]. Then we enter the third era of Hollywood history, and then modernism, and finally how we became the mecca of gay acceptance that we are in 2025.
What is the most fabulous stop on the tour?
My favorite stop is Palm Canyon Drive, once we turn off Alejo Road by Our Lady of Solitude Catholic Church, where Liberace had his funeral. [We start playing] our music outside — “P.S. I Need It All,” which is Anita Doll’s first hit single — that song gets people’s attention. They turn, they see this crazy-shaped vehicle coming down the road, and then they look closer and see 13 faces smiling back at them. Then they see a crazy drag queen, and they’re like, Oh my God, what’s happening?
What lasting impression do you want the tours to leave?
The lasting feeling that I want people to have when they leave Drag & Fly Tours is that they take a message of belonging back into the world with them. That they felt happy and entertained and joyful. I’d really love for them to get on the airplane or get back in their car and think, God, that drag queen, she tapped into something. She was so joyful just being herself, even though what she is in this world is sometimes so controversial. You know, man in a dress, who knew? Whatever is going on in their life, I want them to leave feeling like they might be able to tackle it a little bit better and to do something about it. Because I did that, and I’m not that special. People can do it. It’s not all drag.
