Your Texas best Campgrounds and sights to see

If you're in the San Antonio area, most everyone visits the Alamo but we enjoyed the other missions on the Mission Trail more than the Alamo. (Mostly due the the over commercialization of the Alamo.)

Doug

sdianel wrote:
Also Dallas Fort Worth is worth a few days. We enjoyed the stock yards in Fort Worth. Benbrook Lake has a corps of engineers park.
Lake Texoma in northern TX is nice. Corps of Engineers campgrounds with new sites right on the lake.

A lot of the COE. Campgrounds on Lake Texoma are still closed or partially closed due to flooding in spring of 2015. Much of this info is not showing on recreation.gov. :-(
I will post a link in another post where updated info can be found.

I grew up in southwest Arkansas, went to the University of Arkansas when it was in the Southwest Conference - and listened to Texan's bragging BS all my life.

But they were right about it being a big, beautiful state with amazing variety in the landscape. I ended up living in the Dallas area for 30 years, longer than in Arkansas growing up.

As an alternate to the I-10 windshield tour, I'd suggest US-90 from San Antonio to Van Horn - and nice stops along the way as mentioned.

Going north into central Texas or even as far as I-30 or I-40 also offers a lot of great stops.

My favorite places in Texas - most already mentioned -

Inks Lake SP a bit north and west of Austin;

Palo Duro Canyon & Caprock Canyons state parks nearish to Amarillo;

Big Bend National Park & Davis Mountains State Park (Macdonald Observatory nearby) & Balmorhea State Park

the New Braunfels/ Canyon Lake area - we usually stay at a COE park on Canyon Lake

One word of warning - many Texas COE parks suffered extensive flooding/ flood damage in 2015. Most of the year round COE parks are now scheduled to open by April 3rd, but check in advance for any COE park you would want to visit. A few will be closed all of 2016.

If my "normal" route was to pass through on I10 and I wanted to spend a little more time and get some variety this is what I'd do:
After Beaumont, drop down to the Texas coast and follow the coastal highways down to Port Aransas. (You'll get two ferry rides, too!) Galveston, Rockport, Port Aransas and Padre Island are particularly interesting. Out of Corpus Christi, travel west and intersect Hwy 90 which will take you to the Big Bend region. Judge Roy Bean (at Langtry) and Seminole Canyon are worth stopping for. Spend a couple of days in Big Bend Nat'l Park. Head back up to I10 checking out Fort Davis and the McDonald Observatory. Much more detail would be necessary to describe all the options available to you by going this route!

Hiking Hunter wrote:
Palo Duro Canyon

X3
Camping in the bottom of the canyon in Mesquite Loop and watching a full moon come up over the canyon is spectacular.

Also Dallas Fort Worth is worth a few days. We enjoyed the stock yards in Fort Worth. Benbrook Lake has a corps of engineers park.
Lake Texoma in northern TX is nice. Corps of Engineers campgrounds with new sites right on the lake.

Yes, there is a lot to see and do in Texas. You are getting a lot of good answers to your question. A must see in Texas is "The Painted churches of Texas". Stay in Schulenburg. A good place to take the tour or drive around on you own. They are in small towns around Schulenburg.
If you like Bar-B-Que. The area around Luling and Lockhart is where you want to go. Also check out "The Texas Kolache Trail". Cities like West(village bakery), Ellinger (Hrusk's), La Grange(Weikel's) Also Schulenburg.

We spent about six weeks last spring traveling around Texas. If you can plan to be in the Texas Hill Country in late March or early April you will be able to see the spectacular Texas Bluebonnets.

Our favorite campgrounds were Palo Duro Canyon State Park, Inks Lake State Park (in the hill country), Goose Island State Park (near Rockport on the Gulf Coast), Cranes Mill Park COE on Canyon Lake, and Mustang Island State Park. If you plan to spend several nights in Texas State Parks look into getting the Texas State Park Pass.

Don't miss a visit to Enchanted Rock State Park, Palo Duro Canyon, the LBJ Ranch and Longhorn Caverns.

Click on the link in my signature to go my blog where there are several posts about our Texas adventure. Have a great trip!

Too many grand places to list haha... Texas has many large lakes and these usually draw alot of great campgrounds.

My extended family lives in the North Texas areas (US82) and even the small campground just south of Bonham TX at a small lake site called Bonham State Park is great for us. The family town of Gober TX only has a couple of streets and a grave yard where some of the wife's family is buried... Even VERIZON doesn't work well there...

Another great adventure place is just inside Oklahoma near Lawton (I44) at MedicinePark OKLA is the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge with a great campground called CAMP DORIS. All kinds of wildlife roam free at the Refuge and the kids and grown-ups love this place.

Roy Ken

Do a Google search for `Texas tourism' and read on.