where to travel right now

Stay at a pet-friendly hotel + 8 more Texas travel tips in November

Texas travelers' furry best friends won't need to be left with a petsitter this year.

Photo courtesy of The Kimpton Pittman Hotel

From pet-friendly hotels to fall festivals and new museum exhibits, there is plenty to do and see on a fun-filled weekend vacation or staycation in November. Texans looking for ideas for where to travel can find them here, in our big monthly roundup of top tips around the state.

Across North Texas

Pet owners seeking a pet-friendly hotel for a holiday staycation can look to The Kimpton Pittman Hotel in downtown Dallas, which allows pets of all kinds and provides plenty of comfortable amenities. The hotel offers pet beds, feeding mats, leashes, and courtesy bags for walks for guests' furry friends. The hotel doesn't charge cleaning fees or pet deposits, doesn't have a size or weight limit, nor does it limit the number of pets guests can bring. Rates at The Kimpton Pittman Hotel begin at $277 per night.

The Fort Worth Stockyards' annualTexas Country Music Weekend is returning for three days of lively performances by 30 talented artists from November 8-10. Scheduled acts include Sunny Sauceda Band, Tanner Sparks, Curtis Grimes, and many more. The weekend will culminate with the Texas Country Music Awards held at Billy Bob's Texas on November 10 at 6 pm. Tickets for the awards show start at $30, and can be purchased via axs.com.

In Houston

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is the one and only U.S. venue for a blockbuster exhibition featuring works of French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin, now on display through February 16, 2025. Called Gauguin in the World, the retrospective, curated by former Louvre and Musée d’Orsay director Henri Loyrette, includes over 150 of the artist's paintings, sculptures, prints, and writings. The special exhibition is included with regular museum admission, which ranges from $20-$24 and is free for children aged 12 years and under.

Paul Gauguin, Femmes de Tahiti (Tahitian Women), 1891 on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Gauguin in the World is on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston from now until February 16, 2025. Photo courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Texans who want to explore the beauty of Houston in the fall still have time to book a weekend trip with the Blossom Hotel Houston's "Autumn Escape Package," which runs until November 30. The package offers a 15 percent discount on stays for two nights, and a 20 percent discount on three-night stays. The hotel will also offer a $40 breakfast credit, vouchers for two complimentary seasonal beverages, and late checkout. Nightly rates with the "Autumn Escape" package begin at $281.

In the Hill Country

October is Texas Wine Month, but November is just as wonderful for visiting Hill Country wineries. Wine-lovers will want to make sure to visit award-winning William Chris Vineyardsin Hye, Texas, which recently ranked among the World's Best Vineyards list for the third consecutive year. There are more than 100 wineries in the Hill Country, and William Chris was the only one to make the 51-100 list. It was one of two United States vineyards to make the cut, the other being Brooks Wine in Oregon. The vineyard offers a variety of experiences starting at $20 per person, and can be reserved on its website.

William Chris Vineyards tasting room William Chris Vineyards has done it again. Photo courtesy of William Chris Vineyards

At home in Austin

If you've ever wanted to visit a Texas-sized book festival, now's your chance: The 29th annual Texas Book Festival is taking over downtown Austin from November 16-17. The 2024 lineup features more than 250 authors, including New York Times bestselling authors Matthew McConaughey, Malcolm Gladwell, Rumaan Alam, and Jay Ellis. The two-day event will also have book signings, youth and bilingual programs, a Saturday night Lit Crawl, cooking demonstrations, food trucks, and more. The Texas Book Festival is free and open to the public.

One of the most highly regarded fall arts events in Austin, the Waterloo Greenway Creek Show, will light up Waller Creek on the evenings of November 8-16. The annual show encourages attendees to engage with the natural elements of the Austin's downtown area, and the pieces usually have something to do with nature or the creek itself. Tickets begin at $6, and are exclusively available for purchase through waterloogreenway.org.

In San Antonio

The Briscoe Western Art Museum is celebrating San Antonio's Native American history with the Yanaguana Indian Arts Festival on Saturday, November 9, from 10 am to 4 pm. The free festival has attractions for all ages: Live performances by traditional Native American dancers and musicians, an artisan market, workshops, indigenous storytellings, presentations, and more. Museum admission will also be free for the day. RSVP via biscoemuseum.salsalabs.org.

The winter holidays are coming early this year at The Westin Riverwalk, San Antonio. The hotel will host its Ford River Holiday Parade Experience from 6-9 pm on Friday, November 29. The evening will begin with reception-style dining and cocktails in the hotel lobby, followed by the parade viewing at 6:45 pm. General admission begins at $95, and the hotel will also offer a "North Pole VIP Room Experience" that includes single-room accommodations for two guests, VIP reception-style dinner for two, four drink tickets, and two reserved seats in the outdoor VIP viewing area for $650. Tickets can be purchased via Eventbrite.

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Bring on the rasquachismo

Irreverent Chicano art exhibit in San Antonio breaks the museum mold

Weird cactus sculpture at the McNay Art Museum

Photo courtesy of Salvador Jiménez Flores

“La resistencia de los nopales híbridos / The Resistance of Hybrid Cacti,” 2016, by Salvador Jiménez Flores.

Museums may largely be imagined with pristine exhibits and austere art, but San Antonio's McNay Art Museum is dipping into an inherently practical and irreverent Mexican-American aesthetic for its next exhibit. Rasquachismo: 35 years of a Chicano Sensibility celebrates art inspired by homes, lawns, flea markets, and more from December 19 to March 16.

Rasquachismo is a term referring to the often irreverent aesthetic of the underdog, derived from — and reclaiming — a term meaning "poor" or "vulgar." The words "resourceful" and "playful" also come up often in describing rasquache art. Think of camp or kitsch as similar, if not completely parallel, ideas.

Of course, intellectuals cannot resist trying to define this style that is inherently resistant to being nailed down. One of them, critic and scholar of Latinx art Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, coined the term in a 1989 essay called “Rasquachismo: A Chicano Sensibility," which now serves as an anchor for the McNay exhibit.

"This outsider viewpoint stems from a funky, irreverent stance that debunks convention and spoofs protocol," Ybarra-Frausto wrote. "To be rasquache is to posit a bawdy, spunky consciousness seeking to subvert and turn ruling paradigms upside down—a witty, irreverent, and impertinent posture that recodes and moves outside established boundaries."

$Salvador Jim\u00e9nez Flores sculpture$ Part of the exhibit: “La resistencia de los nopales híbridos / The Resistance of Hybrid Cacti,” 2016.Sculpture by Salvador Jiménez Flores

In the case of the much more easily defined museum exhibit, this will mean centering San Antonio artists who work with DIY elements and who reference aesthetics and items found on city streets, in religious shrines, in graffiti designs, and more, often incorporating found objects. Fittingly, the works won't be bound to a single physical exhibit and will instead be scattered throughout the museum.

Some of the works on display for this exhibit come from the museum's collection, by artists like Margarita Cabrera, Chelo, Luis Jiménez, Yolanda López, César Martinez, Juan de Dios Mora, Chuck Ramirez, and Kathy Vargas. Some other works are on loan from elsewhere in San Antonio and other cities.

The works will also demonstrate the related and only slightly newer idea of domesticana. Artist and curator Amalia Mesa-Bains coined it in 1992 in response to Ybarra-Frausto's essay; it refers to "aesthetic interventions of women in the domestic sphere," as the museum summarizes it.

Nivia Gonzalez painting McNay A subtler piece: “Untitled,” ca. 1985-1995.Painting by Nivia Gonzalez

Ybarra-Frausto himself has given the exhibit his stamp of approval and has even loaned some works from his own collection. He helped shape the exhibit as a whole and has complimentary words to offer about the McNay.

“The McNay has always stood as an example of inclusivity and a celebration of diverse cultures,” said Ybarra-Frausto in a press release. “It is heartening to have [curator Mia Lopez] mount this exhibition in honor of that legacy and in celebration of our vibrant community, whose contributions to the cultural landscape are vast and significant.”

This will be Lopez's first show at the McNay, about a year after she was hired into the brand-new position.

“Rasquachismois not a cohesive movement but instead an ethos or aesthetic,” said Lopez in the release. “And to capture that spirit, we’re presenting this exhibition in a slightly different way.”

Just paragraphs after his initial definition in the landmark essay, Ybarra-Frausto points out the futility of putting it all into words; something that makes a museum exhibit both a fascinating attempt at the impossible and a fun way to keep turning the concept on its head.

Margarita Cabrera sculpture McNay A plant made of border patrol uniform: “Space in Between: Carrizos (Teresa Sanchez Garay),” 2010.Sculpture by Margarita Cabrera

"Rasquachismo is a visceral response to lived reality, not an intellectual cognition," he wrote. "To encapsulate a sensibility into words is already a short circuit of its dynamism. What follows then is a nonlinear, exploratory, and unsolemn attempt at tracking this irrepressible spirit manifested in the art and life of the Chicano community."

For more unsolemn attempts in less complicated language, Ybarra-Frausto and Lopez will get together on November 17 at 6 pm for a public conversation at the museum.

“This exhibition is a celebration,” said Lopez. “And it’s an exploration of how Chicano and Latinx art have embodied a spirit of resilience and defiance.”

The McNay museum is located at 6000 N. New Braunfels Ave. More information about the museum is available at mcnayart.org.

visual art mexican american culture

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