Most of Texas may be privately owned, but that doesn't mean it's tame. From McKittrick Ridge and the Guadalupe River to Maravillas Canyon and Lake Crockett, here are eighteen places where you can revel in the most natural, untouched—and, yes, savage—aspects of our state.
If you ask thirteen famous Texans to name their favorite place, don’t be surprised when you get thirteen very different answers.
After a career that’s spanned more than thirty years, George Strait is wrapping up his 48-stop farewell tour this month. For those of us whose lives he has captured so inimitably in song, country music will never be the same.
That's what summer boils down to: Thirteen opportunities to rip up your Friday-to-Sunday routine and go in search of adventure on the high plains. Or utter Relaxation along a languid East Texas river. Or cooler climes inthe historic heart of santa fe. Or the tastiest red enchiladas in El Paso.
Over the past twenty years, from his outpost in Texas, Robert Rodriguez has quietly revolutionized the movie business. What happens when he gets his own TV network?
From fine dining to local beer, the Texas food scene is exploding with more energy, innovation, and sophistication than ever before. Come along as we hunt down the best new restaurants.
In the brief time Ted Cruz has been a senator, he has managed to convince half the country that he is a true patriot and the other half that he is a dangerous nutcase. What will he do next?
And the winners are . . .
We are what we eat, and everything we eat has a story.
A son of the oil patch chases the new boom in South Texas.
Greg Abbott will almost certainly be our next governor. What’s less certain is what sort of governor he will be.
Johnny Manziel seemed like a superhero, the Manziel of Steel, able to leap tall linemen in a single bound. Is he something else?
After ruling the state for a century, Texas Democrats were gradually reduced to irrelevance. Is the reawakening at hand?
Our definitive, soot-stained guide to the best purveyors of smoked meat in Texas—which is to say, the best purveyors of smoked meat on Earth.
From Boca Chica to Sabine Lake, the Texas coast is still home to pristine, natural, secluded spots where you can while away the summer far from the madding crowds. Come along as we explore the hidden beaches, bays, and trails that you always knew were out there.
Ten years after their remarkable fall from grace, no one is quite sure why the onetime Nashville darlings tumbled so far—and never got back up.
After decades as one of the most admired athletes on the planet and one of the toughest competitors ever to ride a bike, Lance Armstrong is facing a new challenge: how to come back from a very public disgrace.
Chances are you are reading this in a Texas city. Though our rural population of 3.8 million is still the country’s largest, we are, for the most part, a bunch of city folk. Almost 85 percent of the state’s population now lives in urban areas. That may not be how
Is Willie Nelson Santa Claus? We asked him that, and a few other things—like what it's like to get busted and get along with Pat Robertson and Snoop Dogg.
The Hill Country Drive, the BBQ Market Drive, the Backwoods Drive, and thirteen other summer trips, from the mountains to the coast, that will take you down some of the prettiest, most picturesque, most wide-open stretches of asphalt Texas has to offer. Buckle up!
In the late seventies, Ted Nugent (a.k.a. “the Nuge” or “Uncle Ted”) had the country’s biggest hard-rock touring act—a wild-ass blend of in-your-face energy, obscene language, and a well-placed loincloth. Now he’s the country’s biggest gun rights advocate—and all that’s changed is the loincloth.
Before you let this man into your living room, you should know that he drank with Clyde Barrow.
Nearly fifteen years after Richard Linklater and I started talking about turning a Texas Monthly story into a major motion picture, it’s finally hitting the big screen, with a little help from Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey, Shirley MacLaine—and a seventy-year-old retired hairdresser from Rusk named Kay Baby Epperson.
Forty years ago, Willie, Waylon, Jerry Jeff, and a whole host of Texas misfits grew their hair long, snubbed Nashville, and brought the hippies and rednecks together. The birth of outlaw country changed country music forever.
Somehow, as every other major airline went bankrupt, slashed its workforce, or grounded planes, Southwest Airlines kept flying high. Today, Southwest is the country’s largest domestic carrier. So how does a feisty underdog vanquish its competitors and dominate a thoroughly beleaguered industry? One Kick Tail-a-Gram at a time.
John Mueller was the heir to one of the great Texas barbecue dynasties. Aaron Franklin was an unknown kid from College Station who worked his counter. John had it all and then threw it all away. Aaron came out of nowhere to create the state’s most coveted brisket. Then John
It was a year of avaricious Astros fans, brainless bank robbers, competence-free comptrollers, discourteous doctors, enraged exes, frisky Frisco-ites, greedy gram-toting grandmothers, hotheaded hand surgeons, ill-informed idiots, jammed-full Jaguars, knife-krazy Kimbroughs, lambasted Lufkinites, mean-spirited magazine articles, nervy narcotics users, obtuse O’Neals, profane pilots, quazy Quaids, romantically rejected receivers, surveilling Scientologists,
Breakfast isn’t just the most important meal of the day. As determined by our exhaustive survey of the state’s best bacon, eggs, pancakes, migas, biscuits, tacos, kolaches, grits, pie, pan dulce, and more, it’s also the most delicious.
Miranda Lambert has a lot to be happy about—she’s recently married, with a brand-new album and a string of hits that has made her the toast of Nashville. So why is she so twangry?
How Matthew McConaughey got discovered, why Renée Zellweger’s part is so small, why some of the actresses can’t eat ketchup to this day, and everything else you didn’t know about the making of the classic high school flick Dazed and Confused.
For the Eighty-second Legislature (our twentieth at the Capitol), everything old was new again: the state faced a budget deficit; the governor harbored presidential ambitions; the members of the Best list were hard to find; and the names on the Worst list picked themselves.
Out of more than half a million acres of state parks and natural areas, we’ve chosen the ten best trips—where to camp, what to do, and what to look for when you head to the nearest town
The Rangers? Don’t look now, but after four decades of haplessness, the boys from Arlington are poised to make a run at something more than just another pennant. They might just be . . . America’s (new) Team.
The heritage, splendor, and proper preparation of the ten dishes every Texan should be able to cook from scratch, from smoked brisket and migas to fried catfish and bacon-wrapped dove. Skillet and shotgun not included.
In this extraordinary oral history, Willie Nelson’s friends, kin, and collaborators (Jimmy Carter, Emmylou Harris, Robert Redford, Merle Haggard, and many more big names) tell their favorite stories about the Red Headed Stranger.
Two luxury retailers: Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. One desirable market: Houston. The fight for the hearts and credit cards of couture clotheshorses like Lynn Wyatt and Carolyn Farb officially begins next month, but already the fur is flying.
On November 18, 1999, at 2:42 a.m., the most passionately observed collegiate tradition in Texas—if not the world—came crashing down. Nearly sixty people were on top of the Texas A&M Bonfire when the million-pound structure collapsed, killing twelve, wounding dozens more, and eventually leading to the suspension of the ninety-year-old
By now we've heard plenty about how smart senior presidential adviser Karl Rove is, and how he's the most powerful political consultant of all time, and how he delights Republicans and bedevils Democrats. But how did the man who made George W. Bush famous get to be famousand infamoushimself?
No kid ever had more fun with his favorite toy than Herb Kelleher has in running Southwest Airlines.
The King Ranch saga: how one family conquered, tamed, loved, toiled on, and fought over a great piece of Texas.
As he readies himself for this summer's Tour de France, the two-time winner is battling allegations in Europe and elsewhere that he uses performance-enhancing drugs. He insists he is clean. But proving that is turning out to be one of his toughest challenges yet. He doesn't use performance-enhancing drugs, he
Some people call it a quartoseptcentennial, or a septaquintaquinquecentennial (seriously), but you’d better save your breath. You’ll need it on this wide-ranging 6,000-mile voyage commemorating Texas’s 175th birthday. It starts in Glen Rose, ends in Austin, and stops along the way at 175 places that tell the story of the
Depending on who you are and how you feel about immigration and cultural change, the image on this page is either no big deal, mildly provocative, or highly controversial. The original painting on which it’s based, American Gothic, by Grant Wood, is one of the most famous in the world.
The L.A. life of a girl from Burleson (or, You can take Kelly Clarkson out of Texas . . .).
Although some might consider the Kilgore Rangerettes an anachronism, every summer dozens of fresh-faced teens from around the state flock to East Texas to perfect a seemingly effortless hat-brim-touching high kick—and preserve one of the state’s great traditions.
As we head into the most critical legislative session in decades—maybe ever—the question is not just, Who are the people with the most clout at the Capitol? It’s also, What do they want?
How an East Texas attorney spawned the most massive products-liability case ever—one that has cost millions of dollars and involved thousands of plaintiffs and might never end.
From H. Ross Perot to the people who will run Texas in the nineties, from couples with clout to the Brownwood Mafia, we present the most complete guide to power in Texas ever compiled.
It was a year of appalling analogies, bare-naked Badu, collapsing Cowboys, dim-witted Daughters of the Republic of Texas, egregious Ethics Commission, felonious fishermen (not to mention frisky firefighters), G-rated (not) guards, hilarious headlines, imperial incumbents, jackass judges (as always!), klutzy kat rescuers, legendarily lame and losing Longhorns, mind-boggling menus, noncompliant
George W. Bush says he doesn’t have time to think about his legacy, but the rest of us have no such trouble. We asked some of the smartest people we could think of—prize-winning historians, presidential scholars, White House vets—to predict how 43 will be judged and to suggest what, if
