Spending time outdoors is good for mental health. But as COVID-19 spreads in Texas, officials and citizens are grappling with whether, and how, we can enjoy public parks.
Big Bend
Not many people will drive the mail to places the U.S. Postal Service won’t. Seventy-one-year-old Gilbert Lujan is one of them.
Austin rockers Montopolis will premiere The Living Coast—an audiovisual homage to the Texas Gulf Coast—on August 2 in Austin.
Ninety-three-year-old Armando Vasquez tells of a place that used to be.
What to do, where to eat, and more if you’re heading to Fort Davis, Marfa, Marathon, and/or Big Bend this season.
What Texas Monthly's style contributors are inspired by right now.
A 39-year resident of Houston is gearing up for his first experience of the greatest road trip Texas has to offer.
Over three installments, we follow a film team as they—by bike, horse, and canoe—document how a physical wall would affect the area, water, and its people.
For an affordable stay in a new city, with built-in friends.
We found fast cars, big skies, and a whole bunch of daredevils at this annual high-speed race weekend out west.
The festival titan wants access to government-owned lands for its events.
Few things make Texans happier than a full tank of gas and an open highway. You’ve got a lot of ground to cover, but I propose you start with these four trips, each originating at Brady, the geographic center of Texas. You’ll be saying “y’all” and offering the hi sign in no time.
Saved by Prickly Pear A hiker gets trapped in Big Bend. It was a gorgeous Tuesday morning in April 2010, and Merritt Myers was going on a hike. Hiking was a form of spiritual therapy for Myers—the Austinite had trekked in the Grand Canyon, Yosemite National Park, even Machu…
Six burros and their handlers marched up Lavaca Street to the Capitol, a furry showing of opposition to TPWD's feral burro-eradication program.
Texas Parks and Wildlife has embarked on an ambitious plan to restore the desert bighorn sheep population in Big Bend Ranch State Park. To accomplish this goal, the department has had to make hard choices about which animals live, which animals die, and what truly belongs in the Trans-Pecos.
The senior editor on Texas Parks and Wildlife’s program to reintroduce bighorn sheep in the Big Bend.
The title of James Evans’s new series of Big Bend photographs is “The Camera Never Sleeps.” It doesn’t matter, apparently, that the photographer does.
James H. Evans has been photographing Big Bend for twenty years. But never before has it looked so, well, big.
What does it take to break a wild mustang? Patience, horse sense, experience, and if you’re Teryn Lee Muench, no more than one hundred days.
In Donald Judd’s last interview before his death, in 1994, the artist explained that he’d first come to Marfa two decades earlier because he “just wanted a place in the Southwest for the summertime.” Whether he intended it or not, this far West Texas town has since become the…
For many travelers, this far West Texas town is a last-chance pit stop before heading south to brave the wilds of Big Bend National Park. But, this past spring, after driving 407 miles (that’s roughly 7 hours and 143 country songs) from Austin to…
A mountain lion attack in Big Bend, Lance Armstrong speaks, the latest on redistricting, and the New York Times's "Frugal Traveler" makes his way through Texas.
From riding on the range and stargazing to big game huntin, here are five guest ranches where you can explore your inner cowboy.
Birds resemble art in more ways than one, especially when they force us to address questions of ineffable provenance.
In this high-desert hub just north of Big Bend National Park, you’ll find Western artwork, Mexican handicrafts, and the unexpected snow cone.
After telecommunications tycoon Steve Smith bought the Big Bend town of Lajitas on a whim for $4.25 million, he spent perhaps $100 million more developing what was going to be a five-star, world-class getaway. The desert, however, had other ideas.
To hear John Poindexter tell it, he’s one of the good guys—a faithful steward of his West Texas land and therefore a worthy bidder for 46,000 acres of Big Bend Ranch State Park. But sometimes having your heart in the right place simply isn’t enough.
To experience the majesty and peril of the desert on my own terms, I spent a week alone in the Solitario, the most remote area of Big Bend Ranch State Park. I confronted my darkest fears—and made small talk with an insect.
Whether you want to hike it, raft it, drive it, or all of the above, here's everything you need to know to get the most out of a trip to Texas' greatest treasure.
When mountain lions started turning up, the Sierra Club said, “Save them!„ Ranchers said, “No way!„
