Texas as a holiday destination..... or not.

simpsonsfan

Sorry to be a party pooper but I visited Houston, Texas last year with family and didn't enjoy it. My main gripe was there were a lot of homeless people on the streets begging and drinking alcohol. Most of them looked spaced out and it was a bit scary, especially being with young family. Apparently a lot of people were made homeless due to the hurricane that ripped through the area.
Have you thought about Arizona? We were there recently and had the best time ever? Phoenix, Sedona, Grand Canyon, then onto Las Vegas...... each to their own I guess and I'm by no means an expert on Texas but............ the bit of Texas I saw wasn't very impressive.

SimonVeness

We know the Dallas/Fort Worth area well and can definitely recommend it for a good holiday and you could easily spend 16 days in Texas and not be bored for a minute. Fort Worth itself is a nice surprise (a lot of cowboy history there), and the 'modern' face of the two cities is also very fresh and inviting. There are a lot of very smart museums and the JFK Museum is absolutely unmissable, IMHO. The restaurants are good, shopping is great and there is the Six Flags park to add guaranteed family fun. Plus, it has all the main American sporting opportunities, and it is well worth giving one of these a try at some stage.

Murphy_The_Cat

Tojo, nice wedding chapel

simpsonsfan, thansk for your feedback about Houston. I prefer to have differing arrival/departure airports as it gives me an ideal opportunity to visit 2 different parts of an area -- ideally, if I'm flying from somewhere, its a good excuse to visit the area for a day or two before departure, however, it could be that IAH is simply a departure airport.
last year I spent nearly 4 weeks touring Nevada, Arizona & Californis (see here) and had the best time of my life !
I have airmile to America to use before May next year, so I was looking for a holiday that would be in the Hot(ter) Southern States. I've cvisitied both Florida & Californis several times, so I thought that this time, we'd go for somewhere in the middle -- plus, my FiL lives in AZ, so I'll give that place a miss

Simon, that link that you gave is the BeesKnees, thank you very much indeed.

Coolhandluke

(As per your suggestion MURPHY)

You will find that once you go off the "loop" into Western Texas that there aint much there and what there is will involve a lot of driving.
For most of this trip we stayed with local people except for The Hill Country and Rockport.
The heat in June is exhausting lol so your time of year should be better.We had hoped to go horse riding but the heat was just to much so we gave it a miss.
We started of in Huston spending 3 nights there,visited downtown then the Natural History Museum and a few of the parks and Bayou Bend House and Gardens.Then it was of to San Antonio for 2 nights.There we went to Sea world,Alamo and San Juan mission plus some shopping and the River Walk,if you want lunch give the River Walk a miss and head to Market Square,more authantic and 1/2 the price.
From there we headed to The Hill Country for 2 nights staying at a B&B set in the hills,really lovely and a nice change from the flatness of Texas.
Visited Bandera and a few other towns i cant remember but well worth the time we spent there and some swimming in the river.
Then up to Austin for 2 nights were we went to the Capitol Building,Texas Museum and a music club at night plus stopped of at New Braumfields for the water park and a swim at Ziller Park
Austin is a really "cool" place but you need to visit to see what i mean.
Then up to Dallas for 2 nights,Deeley Plaza which is nothin special,Fair Park with a lovely museum and Fort Worth for the daily Longhorn drive.
From there it was down to Rockport on the coast which was our longest drive of the trip,its a small costal town with good beach and nice small town feeling and just relaxed on beach for 2 days.
Then it was of to Gavelston for 1 night,its a lovely old place and worth a look although the sea front is a bit Blackpoolish.
Then it was up to Huston for return flight.
There should be enought for the kids but do research it and plan an itiniary.
All this took us aroung 15 days and all the people we met were great.
We did all this without a Satnav and just used a few maps we printed out without any problems.
We flew AA,do you know if i will have got any points that i can use for another flight with them? as i would love to go to the Huston Rodeo next year in March.
I chose Texas as i have already done the West Coast/Flordia thing and wanted something different,bear in mind Texas aint California etc but we liked it.
It can involve a lot of traveling so bear that in mind because of the kids.
Anything else you need just ask.

simpsonsfan

Sorry didn't realise you'd already done the Arizona trip. I've seen quite a bit of the states too and have been to Florida 4 times. Also, Colorado was amazing but that was in the winter so lots of snow. It looks like you have got plenty of ideas from other posters to be going on with. Personally I love the states as the country is so vast there is something for every taste. Enjoy your holiday.......

Murphy_The_Cat

simpsonsfan wrote: »

Sorry didn't realise you'd already done the Arizona trip. I've seen quite a bit of the states too and have been to Florida 4 times. Also, Colorado was amazing but that was in the winter so lots of snow. It looks like you have got plenty of ideas from other posters to be going on with. Personally I love the states as the country is so vast there is something for every taste. Enjoy your holiday.......

Simpsonfan, no worries. As for enough ideas, nahhhhh the mores the better. like you, I enjoy America.American enormously.

Coolhandleluke, that post of yours goes above and beyond the cause of MSE, thaks a bundle.

Now all I need to do is manipulate the AA flight computer and wait for the price to get a bit more agreeable. Its currently hovering around the £425 mark, but £325-£375 would make me a lot happier.
As regards your AA miles, if you'd have registered before, then yes, your mile would have counted, but I don't know how to retospectively ckiam for them (or even if you can)

hezza86

Hi,

Couldnt read and run, My Fiancee worked in Houston for 3 months 2 summers ago and i went out for 2 weeks(my first trip to the states) and i loved it.
Depends on what you like to do i enjoyed Houston and the people where lovely. As previous posters have said the Space centre is a must as its amazing. Theres the waterpark, a lovely zoo. And if your misses likes shopping she could enjoy the wonders of the galleria shopping centre, its huge and lovely and right in the city centre.
We went to San Antonio for a day trip to sea world which was a long drive but thats the only other part of texas we saw.
But Houston is a lovely city (obv biast as it was my first experience of being in america) and worth the visit.

Murphy_The_Cat

hezza86 wrote: »

Hi,

Couldnt read and run, My Fiancee worked in Houston for 3 months 2 summers ago and i went out for 2 weeks(my first trip to the states) and i loved it.
Depends on what you like to do i enjoyed Houston and the people where lovely. As previous posters have said the Space centre is a must as its amazing. Theres the waterpark, a lovely zoo. And if your misses likes shopping she could enjoy the wonders of the galleria shopping centre, its huge and lovely and right in the city centre.
We went to San Antonio for a day trip to sea world which was a long drive but thats the only other part of texas we saw.
But Houston is a lovely city (obv biast as it was my first experience of being in america) and worth the visit.

Thanks for the post hezza and thanks for speaking up for Houston. I feel that it would be nigh on criminal to be in Texas and not to go to the Space Center at Houston !

But now the Cat family has another, BIGGER problem :eek::eek:

Mrs Cat came across the TravelTex website - and once my 5 year old saw what there was to do in Texas, he wants to DO IT ALL:rotfl::rotfl:.

BTW, shopping is a Big NoNo in America, because as I told Mrs Cat, they don't accept UK Credit Cards ;):o

I'm hoping that I can find plenty to do at Corpus Christi, as I'll be taking MTK there for a bit of Father/Son quality aircrat carrier time.

Murphy_The_Cat

Hurray, things are go, go, go.
With a bit of fandangling with the flight times/dates, we've got our free Aadvantage flights, so getting there is going to cost us realtively little, PLUS, with flying out on a Tuesday and back on a Thursday, we've got 2 full weekends to take advantage of some facilities that are only open on a Sat/Sun due to it being Off Season.

A quick question - I've never given it any thought beforehand, but is Easter a big deal in the States ? There are no public holidays & I was just curious.

jackieblack

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

Hurray, things are go, go, go.
With a bit of fandangling with the flight times/dates, we've got our free Aadvantage flights, so getting there is going to cost us realtively little, PLUS, with flying out on a Tuesday and back on a Thursday, we've got 2 full weekends to take advantage of some facilities that are only open on a Sat/Sun due to it being Off Season.

A quick question - I've never given it any thought beforehand, but is Easter a big deal in the States ? There are no public holidays & I was just curious.

We were in LA on Easter Sunday this year. Alot of shops were closed and public transport/tours etc were running but on a less frequent basis.

Good Friday/Easter Saturday and Easter Monday everything was open/running as normal.