Neither shifting sands nor fluctuating fortunes can erode this island town’s indomitable spirit.
The Wanderer
It's officially leaf-peeping season. Here's where to catch the spectacular spoils of fall.
Jordan, Hey. I’m heading to Austin at the end of July and—having worked at Philadelphia magazine for a few years—I figured reaching out to you would be the best way to figure out what to do. A few college friends and I will be visiting a…
From the bustling cities to the Piney Woods and West Texas deserts, no state has as much to offer travelers as Texas. I keep an ever-growing Texas To-Do list; here’s one of my many entries. Last May, cranes lifted a 480-ton theater out of the San Marcos River.
Last week, I asked for a little help answering a California reader’s query about where in Texas he and his family should relocate. I was very happy to read all of your thoughtful comments, as well as the responses on Twitter and Facebook.
Help some poor Californians out (figuratively and literally).
Spring is here, and with it another entry for the Texas To-Do List: meet one of Texas's oldest living things, a 1,230 year-old cypress tree growing in Orange.
I'm always fielding questions from my friends and family about the best things to do and see in Texas. (There's a lot.) So, I thought, why not share some of these exchanges with you? This week: a weekend in San Antonio.
Coming to Austin and want a break from SXSW's landscape of rock shows and long lines? Here are a few small towns, just a stone's throw away, offering some of the state's best barbecue and most charming pieces of the past.
I'm always fielding questions from my friends and family about the best things to do and see in Texas. (There's a lot.) So, I thought, why not share some of these exchanges with you? First up: McKinney.
From the bustling cities to the Piney Woods and West Texas deserts, no state has as much to offer travelers as Texas. I keep an ever-growing Texas To-Do list; here's one of my many entries.
Sometimes the best vacations are staycations. Though I didn’t have to travel very far to get to my March destination—East Austin—it was a welcome change of scenery. There are far too many shops, restaurants, bars, and other discoveries in the neighborhood to hit them all in a…
In Texas Monthly’s inaugural issue (forty years ago this month, in February 1973), writer Richard West exhorted “weekend wanderers” to pack up and embrace the three-day vacation. “With a little imagination, planning, and a basic Texas road map,” he wrote, “a very real quality of leisure…
While the first issue of 2013 is en route to newsstands and your mailbox (because you are a Texas Monthly subscriber, right?), here's a little preview of some of the sights, sounds, and tastes I discovered while on assignment in...can you guess which Texas town? (Click through to find out.)
In the November 2012 issue of Travel + Leisure, the magazine's editors have compiled a list of 101 places around the world that they say "define the traveler's core curriculum right now." One Texas destination has made the list. Can you guess what it is? Click through to see if you're right . . . .
This time last year, I was leaving the Cotton Bowl along with thousands of football fans who'd made the annual pilgrimage to watch the 106th Red River Rivalry, one of the highlights of the State Fair of Texas. While throngs of UT fans were making a beeline for the parking lot, dejected after their loss (a scene that was played out again today), I noticed many of the OU faithful heading straight for the fried food stands, eager to celebrate their victory by eating something—anything, everything—dipped in batter and dunked in hot oil. Naturally, I joined them. (Full disclosure: Although I am a native Texan and, thus, feel obligated to root for the home team even though I did not attend UT, my brother is a faithful OU alumnus, and I feel obligated to extend my unconditional sibling support even though he decided to go to school in Oklahoma. Plus, I went to school in Illinois, so I have no room to talk.) In between yells of "Boomer!," the celebratory Sooners popped doughy balls of fried beer into their mouths and hoisted paper boats filled with golden Oreos into the air like they were brandishing the Golden Hat itself.
As a recent study of hotel booking trends pointed out, us Texans prefer to vacation in Texas. Since our last roundup of the state's most notable lodgings was in 2004, I thought it was high time to revisit the subject. So I drafted a list of 44 hotels that have opened or undergone significant renovations in the last 8 years. I then winnowed that list down and booked rooms (anonymously) at 24 properties across the state to determine my favorites. Although my full reviews will be available next week (the November issue goes live on TexasMonthly.com on Wednesday and hits newsstands on Thursday), I wanted to go ahead and share my ten favorites (plus the five that nearly made the cut) . . . .
So I’ve been MIA from the blog lately, but I think I have a pretty good excuse, as I’ve been busy putting the finishing touches on a Texas travel feature for our November issue. For the latest installment of “Where To Stay…
For the October installment of the Wanderer, I spent three days exploring a Houston hood with a colorful history (a 1973 Texas Monthly article called it “the strangest neighborhood in Texas”) and a colorful array of shops, restaurants, and watering holes. Can…
For my first official outing as the Wanderer, I got to play cowgirl for a few days in Bandera, the (self-proclaimed) Cowboy Capital of the World. As I was busy riding horses, two-stepping, and eating fried delicacies, I managed to take nearly a thousand photographs. Here are ten of the most head-turning things I spied as I was channeling my inner Dale Evans . . .
When it comes to traveling around the state, it's easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of destinations to choose from. One of the things I love most about Texas is that you can drive a few hours (or more than a few hours) in one direction and be at, say, the beach and then head another direction and find yourself in the mountains or in the rolling Hill Country or in the Piney Woods. For the last several years, a few of my colleagues and I have been visiting small towns and exploring interesting areas of big cities in search of noteworthy things to do, see, and eat. Here's a cheat sheet guide to what you can expect to find in a few of the places we've singled out across the state recently . . .
During a recent trip to Houston, I decided to make an early-bird dinner reservation so I could get over to the Rice University campus in time for the evening viewing of James Turrell's Light Epiphany. Open since June, the site-specific "skyspace" was commissioned to mark the university's centennial. The pyramidal structure has been outfitted with LED lights that Turrell has programmed to change in particular sequences—one just before sunrise, one just after sunset—in accordance with the solar calendar. Seeing as how the sun always sets on time, I didn't want to be late. As I hurried toward the structure (located next to the Shepherd School of Music), my first thought was that it looked like some sort of futuristic hover craft. I handed over the email confirmation I'd printed out (though free, reservations are required for the sunset show) and fell in line with the other visitors. Heading up the white staircase embedded in the structure's grassy slope, I felt like Roy at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind as he walked, willingly, up the ramp and into the mother ship.
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…
In one of my favorite descriptions of Marfa, writer David McDannald points out that sometimes it’s “a shadow of a town” and sometimes it’s “a desert Mardi Gras.” At the end of this month, West Texas’s buzziest destination will be lit up like Bourbon Street…
WHAT: Wild Boar Farms, a roadside farm stand worth pulling over for. WHERE: Stonewall, at the northeast corner of Hwy 290 and Luckenbach Road. WHY: For starters, the head farmer’s name is Daniel Bacon. That’s as good a reason as any to patronize this long, wood-paneled structure,…
If you’ve already picked up your copy of Texas Monthly‘s September issue, you’ve noticed that the magazine has undergone a top-to-bottom redesign. In the new Touts section, you’ll find the debut of my Texas travel column, the Wanderer (or, as my colleagues like to…