There's no water in the dryer parts of the Mojave unless you're near big rivers like the Colorado or the rivers that feed into Phoenix or get it piped in from somewhere. You can't easily live anywhere permanently without a good water source.
> Most areas of the basin floor receive 4 to 6 inches of precipitation per year, although annual precipitation can be greater than 40 inches in the southern and eastern San Bernardino and the San Gabriel Mountains (Lines, 1996). Recharge to the groundwater system from direct infiltration of precipitation is minimal.
in modern units "4 inches" is 100 millimeters, so that's about 3 nanometers per second
each person needs about 6 liters of water per day (burning man recommendation, including hygiene, dishwashing, etc., but not garden irrigation) or 70 microliters per second. 70 microliters divided by 3 nanometers is about 20 square meters, so even in the desert you don't need a large catchment to keep your cistern full. this isn't the atacama
if you want to be far from civilization in america, though, the atacama is pretty good for that. parts of patagonia might be better and do have rain
