HIT THE ROAD

Texas at a mile a minute: Road trips for the majestic West and salty South

Big Bend National Park
Photo by Robbie's Photo Art via Flickr
Prada Marfa
Wikipedia
Aerial view of South Padre
Fishing on Mustang Island

We’ve reached that magical time of year when it’s neither too cold nor too hot to drive a good distance with the windows down. Mid- to late-April provides perfect weather in which to hit the federal, state and county roads of the Republic of Texas and be reminded of the huge majesty and preposterous diversity of our weird, glorious land.

The Texas map is jam-packed with road trip destinations, and the various tourist info portals on the Information Superhighway (are people still calling it that?) can tell you about all of them. We’re going to focus on just two of the available highway directions, to get you started, and we’ll put a little lagniappe on each route with a sprinkling of pleasant on-the-way or on-the-way-back diversions for your rambling attention.

Take a road trip tip from an expert: Always leave yourself extra time to get back. Take an extra day off or depart a day early. The feeling of winding your way back home gradually, poking into little towns and taking lunchtime hikes through unsettled woods and creek beds, soaking up the state in its raw form without the threat of schedule alerts popping up on your BlackBerry (do people still use those?) is a sublime and marvelous way to understand why so many people quote that Emerson thing about life and journeys and destinations.

So. Onward!

West: Marfa and Big Bend

Itching to visit a top-tier modern art museum housed in a former US Cavalry outpost? Interested in weird natural skybound light shows (or clay-fired crackpottery about alien life)? How about that decontextualized Prada store that you’ve heard so much about? Marfa is a desert town full of art and stuff. Go there if you like to look at art or stuff.

Big Bend is a desert. It is absolutely vast and completely breathtaking. Go there if you like rocks and fresh air, if you hate humidity, or if you could use a strong dose of the smallness and fragility of the human condition.

Most people make their way to West Texas destinations on venerable old Interstate 10, known in sections as the Veterans Memorial Highway, the Pearl Harbor Memorial Highway, the Rosa Parks Freeway, the Atchafalaya Swamp Freeway, the Baytown East Freeway, the Papago Freeway, the Katy Freeway, the Pontchartrain Expressway, the Stephen Ambrose Memorial Highway and, in quaint and conservatively historical fashion, the Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway. You’ll be driving across none of these sections, on this route. That’s how long this highway is.

Savvy road-ramblers will skip the San Antonio loop and cut to 10 via 290 — passing through Dripping Springs, Johnson City and Fredericksburg — for the sake of Hill Country views and losing a half-hour of that predictable I-35 scenery. Add a potential last stop at the Salt Lick on the way back to town and you’re basically happy forever.

South: Mustang and Padre Islands

Austin’s hippie-ass wilderness bathers go loco for the rivers and springs around town, and that is perfectly all right. If you like a little salt in your air and sand in your hair, though, the Gulf of Mexico seashore is always just a few hours away.

Mustang Island is a nifty strip of sand just south of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge and accessible by ferry service from the mainland. Beach camping in Port Aransas is free for 3-day stretches, locals are friendly, and the town itself is crawling with motels, seaside condo rentals and kitschy kitchenettes, if air conditioning and mattresses are more your trip.

The nearest entrance to Padre Island is by bridge — the John F Kennedy Memorial Causeway, incidentally — on State Route 358 through Corpus Christi. Corpus itself is a worthy weekend destination, what with its kelp-free beaches and brass-statue memorial to the Tejano glory of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez. Local attractions include the Texas State Aquarium, the first ever Whataburger, the color-changing harbor bridge and the junction of Corn Products Road and Valero Way at Exit 5 on I-37.

Although the quickest route to these sandy getaways is almost pure interstate, via I-35 and 410 to I-37 South, we recommend the detour beginning at Exit 204A in San Marcos. Texas Route 123 South gives endless country landscapes and makes for a surprisingly speedy alternative to the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, not to mention that you can stop off at a well-meaning yet slightly out of place public house in Beeville for a pint of fancy imported and a dish of Scotch eggs to keep your strength up.

You might notice that South Padre Island is missing from this section. Honestly, however much fun you might’ve had drinking yard-tall daiquiris and flashing your buttcheeks at other late-life children during Spring Break ’98, there’s more to the Gulf’s barrier islands than the part that America saw on MTV’s The Grind. Grow up, already.*

Trip tips

Aside from the earlier wisdom to make your last day’s drive an occasion (and do this, or at least try to, because you’ll understand why if you do), there are a few things that every road traveler should know:

The sun rises and sets. Going west, leave early or the night before. Going east, leave at noon.
The numbers on interstate exits and mile markers increase as you go west or north and decrease as you go east or south.
Nothing you can eat at a gas station is good for you.
You won’t need your guitar. You’re going to want to need your guitar and you’re going to think you need your guitar but you will not need your guitar.
Check your spare tire.
Bring a tent.
On trips of 1,000 miles or more, overestimate your need for snacks.
Listen to books.
Spot things. Tell the other people in your car about the things you’ve spotted. Smile like hell.

Texas is truly full of reasons to liberate your car from the drudgery of your commute and your garage and go find out why so many people decided to settle down in this here stretch of country in the first place. Practically any road you try will reward you with clear horizons in the dark and a mile-a-minute panopticon of cultural and visual treats in the daytime. It’s wildflower season, after all.

*Clarification: South Padre Island is actually quite beautiful all year long. It’s probably the best seashore in Texas. Go there if you like to go to places that were on MTV’s The Grind.

unspecified

High Score

Austin named the nation's pickleball capital in industry report

Photo by Henry Selis Photo

Other Racquet Social Club is back after city woes.

It's no secret that Austinites love pickleball. A new study proves just how much by ranking Austin the No. 1 city for pickleball in the whole country. Dallas and Houston also made the top 10 at Nos. 3 and 8, respectively.

The report was published by TeachMe.To, an online marketplace for learning sports (and sometimes music) from private instructors. It used data from its own platform, USA Pickleball, Places2Play, local pickleball associations, and more. It also referred to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association (SFIA), which named pickleball the fastest-growing sport in America, with a growth rate of 223.5 percent over three years.

Similarly, TeachMe.To ranked Austin as the fastest-growing city for pickleball, and citing this as the main reason for the overall title of "the nation's pickleball capital."

It name-checked the Austin Metro Pickleball Association (AMPA) — with approximately 3,000-3,500 members — and the Austin Pickleball League (APL), estimating that overall, "15,000-20,000 people play pickleball at least occasionally in the greater Austin area." About half of those players — about 8,000-10,000 people — play at least twice a month.

The report did not include gender data on Austin, specifically, but it did note that not only are two-thirds of pickleball players female; women's involvement in the sport is also growing 50 percent faster than men's.

New courts everywhere
This probably isn't a surprise to people who have noticed the number of courts opened around Austin in recent years. By 2024, TeachMe.To's data shows 32 dedicated courts in Austin, and thanks to with a utility rate of 92 percent it doesn't look like that'll be slowing down.

In the summer of 2023, the online booking platform Swimply noticed how many pickleball courts there were in Austin compared to such great demand, and added courts to its service. In fall 2023 and summer 2024, at least two important developments expanded that availability: Other Racquet Social Club opened as a friendly, country club-like neighborhood option, and national chain The Picklr announced it's bringing five locations to Austin and Round Rock.

Perhaps because Austin is such a food-obsessed city, there seems to be some growing opportunity for food and beverage hospitality around pickleball, too. Other Racquet recently started hosting the Bill's Dips food truck, a spinoff of the popular downtown restaurant Bill's Oyster; and a pair of bars with pickleball courts, Drifters Social Coffee & Cocktails and The Pickle Pub, also opened in South Austin this year, with strong online ratings already.

The trend has even reached into real estate (see this cute house with its own pickleball court) and inspired athletes to introduce similar sports to the local market, as in the case of the padel club Paddle39. TeachMe.To's report also mentioned tech companies adding pickleball to their campuses.

Aside from growth, the study also considered lesson activity (including information about teacher availability and diversity of clinic offerings), infrastructure, community vitality, the tournament scene.

Austin had the highest concentration of all the cities of players under 40 (65 percent), as well as the highest share of national lesson bookings. At 16.90 percent, that means about one in six of the pickleball lessons contracted through this platform were in Austin. Lesson demand, the report says, is growing 125 percent year-over-year.

Elsewhere in Texas
Dallas was No. 3 thanks in part to its "central location" according to the report.

"The city's 45 dedicated courts and 85 [percent] public accessibility rate have fostered one of the most active competitive scenes in the country, with 8,500 registered league players," it says. "The combination of strong tournament presence, extensive infrastructure, and a 112% growth in lesson bookings solidifies Dallas as a powerhouse in the national pickleball landscape."

Houston made No. 8 with an emphasis on integrating pickleball with other sports.

"The city's 22 dedicated courts have seen a 92% increase in lesson bookings, driven by innovative programming that includes the nation's first corporate league system," it says. "Houston's success in integrating pickleball into existing sports infrastructure while maintaining 72% year-round utilization demonstrates a sustainable model for rapid growth."

Overall predictions
After laying out data about the top cities in pickleball, the report made some predictions. As the Austin newcomer mentioned above believes, the report also thinks padel is the next big thing. It also guesses more cities will act like Houston by focusing on hybrid facilities.

It also expects to see an expanded professional circuit and mainstream coverage, more technology used on the court, a rise in the prevalence of young players, and more opportunities in corporate wellness and real estate. "Dedicated pickleball facilities will become as common as swimming pools in luxury developments," it says. Texans will be the judge of that one.

pickleball lists