Visiting Texas? Here’s what the locals love.

05.10.2023 - 13:17 / nationalgeographic.com

Texas looms large in American history and lore. The second largest state in the United States encompasses ancient rock art in its deserts, Latino culture in its cities, and cowboy history and classical paintings in its museums. To help rein in your trip, we consulted locals about where y’all should visit.

Huecos, 10,000-year-old natural rock basins which trap rainwater that animals, birds, and even humans drink from, give Hueco Tanks State Park—about 30 miles outside of El Paso—its name. “It’s a fantastic spot for bouldering and rock climbing,” says writer Rachel Ng, who wrote the Texas chapter of the National Geographic book Great Outdoors U.S.A.: 1,000 Adventures Across All 50 States. “Plus you see pictographs, petroglyphs, and artifacts from the region’s early Jornada Mogollon people.”

Sign up for a ranger-led tour, but plan ahead—only 70 visitors can access the park at once. “You won’t have to fight off the crowds here,” says Ng.

“Houston is a lot artier than people think, in particular the Third Ward,” says novelist and screenwriter Attica Locke, a native of the state’s largest city. “It’s a historically Black neighborhood with a really vibrant culture.” The walkable area southeast of downtown centers around the fountain filled Emancipation Park.

Adjoining streets are lined with shops (Locke recommends the Black author-focused Kindred Stories bookstore) and restaurants like bakery Crumbville (vegan sweets) and the Turkey Leg Hut. “My favorite place to go is Project Row Houses,” says Locke. “They took a bunch of old shotgun houses and turned them into a cultural center with exhibits and events.”

Texas is the battiest state in the U.S., with 32 of the 47 bat species found in America nesting here or migrating through. “Bracken Bat Cave in San Antonio is the largest bat colony in the country,” says National Geographic Explorer Caitlin Bailey, a wildlife photographer and cinematographer based in San Antonio. From June through September, visitors can make a reservation to watch 15 million Mexican freetail bats fly out of the cave (about a 45-minute drive from the city).

“It’s a fun challenge to photograph and film millions of them coming out in a kind of bat-nado,” says Bailey. From mid-March to early November, the largest urban bat colony in North America lives under the Congress Avenue Bridge on Lady Bird Lake in Austin. Each night at dusk, see the freetails depart as you stand on the bridge or the shore or sit on a cruise boat or kayak.

San Antonio’s Alamo rightfully gets a lot of press, but the city’s other four 17th-century Spanish Catholic missions provide a less trafficked look at early life in the area. The UNESCO World heritage sites are located approximately two to three miles apart on a