The Most Fun in Texas

On one end of the Texas fun continuum, exists the scholarly types that dig into the hundreds of Texas museums, libraries, and academic journals. On the other end of it, you have the outdoorsmen and women who are devoted to nature and the extreme sports enthusiasts in Texas’ wide range of terras and climates. In between those two ends are thousands of super fun entertainment activities in Texas, with every major Texas city possessing its own identity. 

What Is the Funnest Thing to Do in Texas?

It would be a tall order for Texas Outside to claim that it can judge the funnest thing to do in Texas. There are thousands of fun things to do in Texas, depending on your taste in fun. We can only hope we bring you some of the most exciting experiences whom the majority of Texans and people who visit Texas consider fun. 

The funnest thing to do in Texas is what you want to see, feel, and do in or at an entertainment venue or experience. It is true that different folks like different types of fun. Texas is brimming with so many different nationalities, some generational and some new transplants. Check out just a smidgen of only some of the amazing things you can do for fun in Texas. 

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Why is Texas Fun to Visit?

Texans adore great tasting food and consider eating a bunch of fun. One of the fun things is Texas cuisine and the Texas chefs who own Texas restaurants and the foodies who flock to their restaurants. Foreign immigrants, historical and even in the last several decades, with native cuisines embedded in its DNA and Mexico’s culinary influence, have fused with the famous indigenous and native Texan spiciness and heat into a unique cuisine. 

From the Piney Woods of East Texas, Hill Country of Central Texas, desert, mountains, and high plains of west Texas, prairies of North Central Texas, and 367 miles of Gulf of Mexico shoreline, visitors will find plenty of grand and thrilling fun, friendly people, great music, great arts/music districts and museums, and outdoor adventures galore. 

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What City in Texas Is the Most Fun?

The five major regions of Texas feature vast and various landscapes, which give Texas the utmost in unique entertainment venues, whether they are outdoors or indoors. 

All of them because each of the major Texas cities sport their own personalities, which are Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antone. Native Texans do not typically say San Antonio. The rest of the mid-sized cities in Texas are the centers of commerce for Texas’ rural regions, but serve up Texas-sized fun as well. 

Fun in Austin

For music, Austin is the “it” city. Texas grew musicians from its beginning before it was a nation and then achieved statehood. Austin’s music fame began on August 12, 1972, when Willie Nelson changed the evolution of Texas music celebrity forever at the Armadillo World Headquarters (WHQ), which is no longer. The Armadillo WHQ put Texas on the music map as one of the most influential music centers in the world. Any day of the week, music wafts through the hundreds of the Austin region’s dance halls and nightclubs. 

Austin’s golf courses are the finest in the world and some of the most beautiful courses, even rivaling Hawaii’s. Explore caves, go hiking, and rafting. The Texas Hill Country is overflowing with gentle rivers for canoeing and kayaking, fishing, and hiking, and large and small lakes for the same, plus extreme water sports. The Texas State Capitol and University of Texas are alive and well, and some of the most visited sites in Austin. 

Fun in Dallas

Dallas and Fort Worth have melded into one big metropolis united by the famous Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport. However, these two cities are as different as chili peppers and honey, which also go well together. Dallas, or Big D, began exploding in size after WWII and in the 1970s when DFW International Airport arose smack dab in the middle of the DFW Metroplex. Although economic upticks and downturns have come and gone since then, DFW has steadily kept on growing. 

Downtown Dallas skyscrapers mark its aerial landscape with a few notable ones being the Bank of America Plaza, the tallest one, the Renaissance Tower, and the affectionately nicknamed, The Ball, or Reunion Tower, which features an elegant gourmet restaurant in a ball-shaped architectural feat on its apex. Guests, pilots and air travelers love the rooftop pool deck built into the roof of the Omni Dallas Hotel. 

After that, Dallas is chock full of restaurants, nightclubs, and shopping centers. Dallas Market Hall rivals NYC’s, Paris’, and Milan’s fashion centers and is the wholesale market showplace of the Southwestern U.S. for a diversity of products. Dallas’ eclectic neighborhoods feature unique entertainment venues and local flavor. Its downtown arts district and two entertainment districts vie for topnotch entertainment venues in any U.S. city.

Fun in Fort Worth

Fort Worth is where the west begins in the Southwest U.S., and you find that American Old West in the Fort Worth Stockyards. Before Billy Bob’s Texas Concert Hall opened in 1981, the Stockyards were a real western stockyard with a stock auction until 1992, when it unfortunately closed down. The Stockyards are a must-see, and one of the funnest things to do in Texas. The Fort Worth Fat Stock Show, held every January to February, keeps the old Stockyard traditions going. 

When you venture to the Stockyards now, you will hear languages spoken from around the world. The White Elephant Saloon opened in Fort Worth’s Hell’s Half Acre district in 1884, was the sight of one of Fort Worth’s last gun fights between Luke Short and Longhair Jim Courtright. The Stockyards Hotel is right across the street from the White Elephant and truly 19^th century Texas. 

Famous restaurants with BBQ and Mexican fare dot the Stockyard’s street fronts. There are also plenty of distinctive shopping attractions, like western wear, saddle shops, and an old-timey drugstore. Other top sites are the fabulous Fort Worth Zoo, Fort Worth Water Gardens, Kimball Art Museum, Modern Museum of Art, Fort Worth Botanic Garden, National Cowgirl Museum & Hall of Fame, Log Cabin Village, and the Japanese Garden.  .

Fun in Houston

These days, Houston is best known worldwide for NASA’s Space Center Houston. The Space Center is a must-visit and features over 400 exhibits and things to see and do, including meeting and learning from astronauts. The Space Center is one of the funnest things to do in Texas. Houston is one of the most religiously and universally diverse cities in the U.S. Houston’s cultural institutions attract over seven million visitors a year. 

Nineteen museums, galleries, and community spaces call Houston’s museum district home. Visual and performing arts rule with resident companies that offer all major performing arts genres in Houston’s Theater District. Houston is known for its vibrant rap artists, Texas blues artists, and pop country and rock artists. Houston boasts a thriving literary scene, with bookstores everywhere, a large calendar of author events, and world-class literary organizations. 

Galveston Island and Bay is a one-hour drive from Houston proper with resorts, the freshest seafood, especially shrimp, clams, and oysters, unique seaside boutiques and oceanfront bars, and sandy beaches. Its bay side, facing Houston, is a trendy place for birdwatching and kayaking. Beach goers do need to keep an eye on beach advisories for bacteria and for jelly fish. 

Fun in San Antonio

San Antonio is best known for the historic Alamo, the birthplace of the Republic of Texas, the River Walk, and the best Mexican food this side of Mexico. The River Walk, also called the Paseo del Rio or River del Alamo, is home to spectacular dining, shopping, arts and museums, hotels, nightclubs, and riverboat cruises and taxis, and hop-on-and-off bus passes with gorgeous landscaping on both sides of the San Antonio River. 

Although the Alamo and the River Walk are the most visited tourist sites in San Antonio (as well as one of the funnest things to do in Texas), its weekly Saturday Night Rodeo from March to November is one of the best rodeo experiences in Texas. It is authentically Texas from the BBQ to the rodeo events. This includes mutton busting, which you will not see at many rodeos, to the live music and dance after. You can pay extra to avoid the perpetual long lines and you must arrive early. 

Other magnificent landmarks and experiences in San Antonio include the Texas Hill Country and LBJ Ranch Tour with hotel pickup to the famous Lyndon B. Johnson Ranch, Fredericksburg, and Luckenbach, Sea World, Historic Downtown Food and Culture Walking Tour, Briscoe Western Art Museum, Hopscotch Immersive Art, Natural Bridge Caverns, and the Heart of Old San Antonio Walking Tour.

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What Is Very Popular in Texas?

This is a simpler question to answer because the most popular places to visit in Texas are extremely well known. In Texas cities and rural Texas, there are hundreds of popular sites to visit. The following sites are just some of the most visited places and funnest things to do in Texas:

• The Cadillac Ranch-Ten miles west of Amarillo on I-40
• Six Flags Over Texas-Arlington
• The Texas Capitol-Austin
• The Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden
• The USS Lexington Museum-Corpus Christi
• The Dallas World Aquarium
• Perot Museum of Nature and Science-Dallas
• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealy Plaza-Dallas
• National Museum of the Pacific War-Fredericksburg
• The Fort Worth Stockyards
• Space Center Houston
• Kemah Boardwalk-Kemah
• Padre Island National Seashore
• The Alamo-San Antonio
• The River Walk-San Antonio
• The San Antonio Zoo
• Natural Bridge Caverns Nature Preserve-San Antonio
• Big Bend National Park-West Texas
  

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What Is Texas Cuisine?

There are five regions in Texas where different Texan cuisines are reflective of Texas’ various flora and fauna, terra, and weather patterns. In addition, hundreds of Texas restaurants feature music and other genres of entertainment along with their fares. Or vice versa, entertainment venues that feature delicious and succulent versions of Texas cuisine. Texas fires up some of the best food in the entire U.S.A. 

Tex-Mex cuisine tops the list of Texas culinary favorites with chili con carne (chili with meat). Texas BBQ, which reflects taste depending on the region, follows. Pecans have to be one of Texas’ most beloved ingredients. Personally, I grew up before sushi was a thing. However, wasabi sauce fit right nicely into the spicy heat that Texans love in their food.

Chicken fried steak definitely qualifies as pure Texan. Check the reviews before you invest in a chicken fried steak dinner, because it has to be done right. A few specialties that epitomize Texas cuisine are smoked brisket, cabrito (goat), chicken, ribs, venison, and quail, fish, shrimp, beef, pork, and chicken fajitas and tacos, grilled hamburgers, Frito chili pie, tamale pie, King Ranch chicken casserole, chili con queso (chili with cheese), salsa, guacamole, cowboy caviar (spicy bean salad), migas, pecan pie, and pralines.