Lonely Planet San Antonio, Austin & Texas Backcountry Road Trips

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• Publisher: Lonely Planet
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781760340490
• eBook ISBN: 9781760341527

Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisher Whether exploring your own backyard or somewhere new, discover the freedom of the open road with Lonely Planet's San Antonio, Austin & Texas Backcountry Road Trips. Featuring four amazing road trips, plus up-to-date advice on the destinations you'll visit along the way, get to know Buddy Holly's Lubbock, visit a dance hall in Gruene, and hike Big Bend's scenic trails, all with your trusted travel companion. Jump in the car, turn up the tunes, and hit the road! Inside Lonely Planet's San Antonio, Austin & Texas Backcountry Road Trips: Lavish color and gorgeous photography throughout Itineraries and planning advice to pick the right tailored routes for your needs and interests Get around easily - easy-to-read, full-color route maps, detailed directions Insider tips to get around like a local, avoid trouble spots and be safe on the road - local driving rules, parking, toll roads Essential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, prices Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss Useful features - including Stretch Your Legs, Detours, Link Your Trip Covers Hill Country, Heart of Texas, Big Bend National Park, Texas Gulf Coast, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, Houston, Port Aransas, San Angelo, Lubbock and more The Perfect Choice: Lonely Planet's San Antonio, Austin & Texas Backcountry Road Trips is perfect for exploring San Antonio, Austin and Texas Backcountry in the classic American way - by road trip! Planning a Texas trip sans a car? Lonely Planet's Texas guide, our most comprehensive guide to Texas, is perfect for exploring both top sights and lesser-known gems, or check out Best of USA, a photo-rich guide to the destination's most popular attractions. There's More in Store for You: For more road-tripping ideas, check out Lonely Planet's USA Best Trips guides to New England, Southwest USA, Pacific Northwest, Florida & the South, New York & the Mid-Atlantic, and USA or Road Trips guides to Route 66, San Francisco Bay Area & Wine Country, Pacific Coast Highways, New England Fall Foliage or Civil War Trail Road Trips. Authors: Written and researched by Lonely Planet. About Lonely Planet: Since 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel media company with guidebooks to every destination, an award-winning website, mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveler community. Lonely Planet covers must-see spots but also enables curious travelers to get off beaten paths to understand more of the culture of the places in which they find themselves. eBook Features: (Best viewed on tablet devices and smartphones) Downloadable PDF and offline maps prevent roaming and data charges Effortlessly navigate and jump between maps and reviews Add notes to personalise your guidebook experience Seamlessly flip between pages Bookmarks and speedy search capabilities get you to key pages in a flash E

Destinations

San Antonio & Hill Country

Most of the small towns in the rolling hills and valleys west of Austin and San Antonio are easy day trips from either city.

Big Bend & West Texas

Explore the expansive Big Bend National Park, and soak up the delicious slowness of west Texas in surprising small towns and ghost-town ruins.

Houston & the Gulf Coast

Attend world-class museums and award-winning restaurants in Houston before checking out the mellow beach-town scene of Port Aransas and the frenetic hedonism of South Padre Island.

Heart of Texas

Leave the big smoke behind and you’ll find that this may be the part of Texas that most typifies the state to outsiders. This is a land of sprawling cattle ranches, where people still make a living on horseback.

Prickly pear, Big Bend National Park
DANITA DELIMONT / LONELY PLANET IMAGES ©

San Antonio & Hill Country

Detour down dirt roads in search of fields of wildflowers, check into a dude ranch, float along the Guadalupe River or twirl around the floor of an old dance hall.

So what if the hills are more mole-size than mountainous? They – and the rivers that flow through them – are what define south-central Texas. To the north is the state capital of Austin, where music, music and more music are on the schedule, day and night. Eighty miles south, the major metropolitan center of San Antonio is home to the Alamo and the festive Riverwalk. Between and to the west of the two towns is the Hill Country, where most of the rolling hills and valleys are easy day trips. Here you can eat great barbecue, dance across an old wooden floor or spend a lazy day floating on the river in small Texas-y towns. If you want to get to the heart of Texas in a short time, this is the way to go.

Top of Chapter

SAN ANTONIO

In most large cities, downtown is bustling with businesspeople dressed for office work hurrying to their meetings and luncheons. Not so in San Antonio. Instead, downtown is filled with tourists in shorts consulting their maps. In fact, many people are surprised to find that two of the state’s most popular destinations – the Riverwalk and the Alamo – are right smack-dab in the middle of downtown, surrounded by historic hotels, tourist attractions and souvenir shops. The volume of visitors is daunting, but the lively Tex-Mex culture is worth experiencing.

San Antonio

1 Top Sights

1 Riverwalk C2

2 The Alamo D2

1 Sights

3 La Villita Historic Arts Village C3

2 Activities, Courses & Tours

4 Rio San Antonio Cruises C2

4 Sleeping

5 Crockett Hotel D2

6 Hotel Havana C1

7 Hotel Valencia C2

8 Ogé House C4

5 Eating

9 Boudro’s C2...

Table of contents

• Cover
• How to Use This eBook
• Contents
• Welcome to San Antonio, Austin & Texas Backcountry
• San Antonio, Austin & Texas Backcountry Map
• San Antonio, Austin & Texas Backcountry Highlights
• City Guide
• Need to Know
• Texas Barbecue
• Road Trips
• Destinations
• Driving in Southwest USA
• Behind the Scenes
• Our Writers
• Index
• Back Cover