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Best Places to Visit in Texas on a Road Trip
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Summer is coming up which includes road trips, memories and friends. As such, I have created a nonexclusive list of best things to do in the Lone Star state whether it be during the summer or any other time of the year.
- Visit the State Fair of Texas in late September and early October. Appreciate the art decorated structures and drawings. Stare up at the new Big Tex. Ride North America’s largest Ferris Wheel, the Texas Star.
- Drink in the bluebonnets that blossom in the spring. Drive the Bluebonnet Trail in Hill Country around sunset and take in the beautiful flowers. When you get closer to Dallas, visit the Bluebonnet Trails in Ennis in April.
- Head to Padre Island. Watch the rare, threatened Kemp Ridley’s turtles as they hatch and race to the water. It is an amazing sight just as the sun rises watching all the small baby turtles crawl towards the water.
- Go eat some Tex-Mex. A hole-in-the-wall or a suggestion from the Texas Monthly. Listen to battling mariachi bands while devouring fajitas.
- Go to church. Maybe a mega-church such as Lakewood Church or visit St. Mary Catholic Church in High Hill.
- Visit the State Capital and take the tour offered several times a day.
- Attend a taping of “Austin City Limits.” The PBS show is the longest running music television show and the only television show to have received the Presidential Medal of the Arts.
- Tour President Lyndon Johnson’s ranch, home of the Texas White House. It’s near Stonewall.
- Tour Texas’ presidential libraries — George W. Bush at SMU; LBJ at UT-Austin; George Bush at Texas A&M.
- Catch a Friday night high school football game, maybe the team that inspired a network TV show and a movie, the Permian Panthers in Odessa.
- Visit a small town – perhaps Fredericksburg or Boerne in the Hill Country.
- Devote an entire day at the Stockyards in Fort Worth, then follow it with a night in Sundance Square.
- On your road trip, take a break at Buc-EE’s. Admire the clean bathrooms, the size of the store, and the amount of merchandise designated for the store.
- Stroll along the San Antonio Riverwalk. Take a departure and visit the Alamo while in San Antonio.
- Consume some Texas-centric foods: Blue Bell ice cream and kolaches in West.
- San Jacinto. The Alamo. Washington on the Brazos. You can’t say you’ve “done” Texas without visiting some of the important historical sites.
- WHATABURGER!
- Attend a real BBQ cookoff…where men have smokers.
- Tour the Johnson Space Center.
- Visit the Strand in Galveston and tour the great historical sites which some have stood since the 1900 Hurricane that destroyed most of the city.
- 6th floor museum and book depository in Dallas, location of the JFK assassination in 1963.
- Tour the USS Lexington Corpus Christi, nicknamed “The Blue Ghost”, is an aircraft built during World War II for the U.S. Navy. Lexington was decommissioned in 1991, with a service life longer than any other Essex-class ship. Following her discharged, she was donated for use as a museum ship in Corpus Christi, Texas. The Lexington is now the oldest remaining aircraft carrier in the world.
- While visiting the Texas State Aquarium make sure you to visit all the exhibits including the Amazon, Dolphin Bay, Eagle Pass, Floating Phantoms, Flower Gardens, Hawn Wild Flight Theater, Islands of Steel, Living Shores, Otter Creek, Stingray Flats, Swamp Tales, and the Tortuga Bay.
- Texas A&M Football Game– watch the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Corps of Cadets march in perfect synchronization as the Aggie Band plays the War Hymn.
- Go to Waco to the Dr Pepper Museum as well as Dublin for the Dublin Dr Pepper Bottling Company and Museum
- Visit the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame in Carthage, Texas or better yet, attend their annual induction show in August. It already boasts inductees and great memorabilia from great artists such as Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Tex Ritter, Jim Reeves, Gene Autry, Mac Davis, Johnny Lee, Jimmy Dean, the list goes on!
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