Top 50 Best Places to Travel 2023 - Houston is only TX place to make the list (Dallas: how much, house)

[Pilsn3r]

https://www.travelandleisure.com/bes...g-city-thrills

Congrats Houston!

[airdrawndagger]

Very impressive. Many natives think Houston is only a place for business travel or visiting family/relatives but underestimate the draws of high-end shopping, sports events, concerts, and museums/cultural attractions that the city offers. I suspect a good chunk of tourists come from TX, adjacent states, and Mexico but still clearly a growing tourist destination.

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Originally Posted by airdrawndagger

Very impressive. Many natives think Houston is only a place for business travel or visiting family/relatives but underestimate the draws of high-end shopping, sports events, concerts, and museums/cultural attractions that the city offers. I suspect a good chunk of tourists come from TX, adjacent states, and Mexico but still clearly a growing tourist destination.

Houston draws a lot internationally mostly due to business. Which is basically in your text, but regardless of that, communities are known to form and establish.

And if I had to point one thing in particular that I like above anything else in the area, that’s probably it.

[achtung baby]

Houston’s museums/cultural institutes and food scene played a fairly big portion in our decision-making process when we were trying to narrow down between Dallas and Houston.

Not all came here for just business or visiting family/relatives.

I’m dating myself but I’ve been fascinated by Houston since I caught the movie Terms of Endearment on TV when I was very, very young. In the movie Shirley MacLaine and Jack Nicholson lived in River Oaks. MacLaine’s house was beautiful, grand, warm and inviting. Her garden was green, lush, and full of life. (Her character’s last name happened to be Greenway, totally metaphorical.) The movie made a very contrasting parallel between the daughter’s struggling marriage in Nebraska with cold winter, dreary, dark and lifeless topography and financial shortcomings vs. the mother’s vibrant, colorful, sunny and well-maintained Houston home. The latter has been cemented in my very young brain with my association with Houston.

Now I got to live my life in Houston in a house that’s quite similar to MacLaine’s, surrounded by vibrant lushness, sunny warmth and very pleasant vegetations and aromatic flowers in the garden.

Just to show that we all have different reasons/background/inspirations on how we decided to visit/move to a city. There’s no uniform in our life stories.

[Mescalero]

Kind of surprising given how much play Austin has gotten in recent years. I like Houston but tourists often don't: you need a car to get anywhere and you need to know exactly where to go for fun but I guess that's easier to find out than ever.

[Watchful]

Though Houston is the polar opposite of "touristy," I could do a week vacation in Houston just for the food.

Disclaimer - I used to live there so I have so many places I wanna go to.

[Houston Area Man]

Houston is a tourist attraction. So many places to visit.

[katygirl68]

Originally Posted by ainsley1999

Houston’s museums/cultural institutes and food scene played a fairly big portion in our decision-making process when we were trying to narrow down between Dallas and Houston.

Not all came here for just business or visiting family/relatives.

I’m dating myself but I’ve been fascinated by Houston since I caught the movie Terms of Endearment on TV when I was very, very young. In the movie Shirley MacLaine and Jack Nicholson lived in River Oaks. MacLaine’s house was beautiful, grand, warm and inviting. Her garden was green, lush, and full of life. (Her character’s last name happened to be Greenway, totally metaphorical.) The movie made a very contrasting parallel between the daughter’s struggling marriage in Nebraska with cold winter, dreary, dark and lifeless topography and financial shortcomings vs. the mother’s vibrant, colorful, sunny and well-maintained Houston home. The latter has been cemented in my very young brain with my association with Houston.

Now I got to live my life in Houston in a house that’s quite similar to MacLaine’s, surrounded by vibrant lushness, sunny warmth and very pleasant vegetations and aromatic flowers in the garden.

Just to show that we all have different reasons/background/inspirations on how we decided to visit/move to a city. There’s no uniform in our life stories.

That’s such an interesting story. I loved that movie. It was the very first movie I saw on videotape, and we rented the VCR from the grocery store at the behest of my sister’s friend who was visiting from out of town. I cried for a long time after that movie. It was the summer of ‘84.

[katygirl68]

Originally Posted by Mescalero

Kind of surprising given how much play Austin has gotten in recent years. I like Houston but tourists often don't: you need a car to get anywhere and you need to know exactly where to go for fun but I guess that's easier to find out than ever.

Austin is having serious growing pains. The population is outgrowing its infrastructure. They’re working on it but the constant construction is annoying. I wish we could go back to the way it was in the ‘80s, but that won’t happen. In a few years Austin will be great again, once it settles into whatever it’s becoming.

[achtung baby]

Originally Posted by katygirl68

That’s such an interesting story. I loved that movie. It was the very first movie I saw on videotape, and we rented the VCR from the grocery store at the behest of my sister’s friend who was visiting from out of town. I cried for a long time after that movie. It was the summer of ‘84.

I’ve seen this movie about 10 times in my life, the last time was catching it on streaming about two weeks ago.-still bawling my eyes out. The “give my daughter the shot!” hospital scene and the younger son crying in front of the mother’s hospital bed just always got me every single time.

To me it’s a quintessential Houston movie, along with Reality Bites in 1994. Paris, Texas, another achingly beautiful movie, was also partially shot in Houston. Rushmore from Wes Anderson (who was born in Houston and went to St.John’s) was another Houston movie I like.

(I never saw the movie Urban Cowboy, read it was shot/based in Pasadena, Tx.)

I didn’t know (until a few months ago absolutely randomly.) Julian Schnabel went to University of Houston and actually had his 1st exhibit in Houston thanks to the then-director of Contemporary Art Museum Houston.

Houston may not be a hugely popular “touristy” city (in fact I find it a good thing.) and normally doesn’t seem to be on top of every basic list of ranking of popularity on c-d, but to me it’s an interesting city, culturally and otherwise.

The other day I was on YouTube trying to find clips of the band Poesie Noir, throughout the comments people keep referring to Houston night clubs playing this song and some record label based in Montrose…..etc. Not from Houston and not familiar with Poesie Noir (i was very pleasantly surprised with their music, reminds me of New Order.) I found the references of Houston intriguing. I’m going to dig myself a rabbit hole researching on that.

My husband and I are both pop culture/art/creativity deciphers, Houston is truly absolutely most definitely not boring at all.