Things to Do in Houston: Space, Food and the Worlds Largest

Houston is the kind of city that appears on few bucket lists and rewards almost everyone who lands there. It sprawls across a huge flat plain in southeast Texas, and first time visitors usually underestimate how much sits inside that sprawl. I spent a week there and came away convinced that Houston does three things better than almost any American city: space, museums and food.

The city runs on the energy industry, but it also runs on a surprising breadth of culture. World class collections sit beside rodeos and stock shows, and the range of food, from Gulf seafood to Vietnamese pho to real Texan barbecue, is staggering. There is no single famous landmark that sums Houston up, which is exactly the point. You have to go out and find it. The best approach is to pick one theme per day, one museum, one market, one neighborhood, rather than trying to see the whole city in a single frantic pass. Here is what I would do again, and roughly in the order I would spread it over a first visit.

Tour NASA Johnson Space Center

If you only do one thing in Houston, make it the Space Center. I booked the tram tour, which takes you past the giant training and mission control buildings and into Rocket Park. Standing in front of a Saturn V, the rocket that carried humans to the moon, put a lump in my throat. The staff are former engineers and flight controllers who tell incredible stories, and the whole place feels less like a museum and more like a working campus that happens to let you in. Give it a full morning, because the tram tour plus the main exhibits can easily take four hours.

Spend a Day in the Museum District

Houston has a Museum District with more than a dozen institutions clustered downtown. I started at the Museum of Fine Arts, which held an impressive collection across two buildings and a sculpture garden, and moved on to the natural science museum, where a huge dinosaur hall is the main event. On weekends the district hosts markets and street performances, and the green spaces between the museums are ideal for a slow afternoon break. The district is walkable between any two sites, and a single admission often covers more than you will see in one day. Check what is on before you go, because the rotating exhibitions are often the best reason to visit in any given week.

Experience the Houston Rodeo and Stock Show

If your trip lands between late February and mid March, do not miss the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the biggest event of its kind in the world. I watched calf roping, bull riding and barrel racing in an arena that holds well over 70,000 people, then wandered the fairgrounds eating fried everything and listening to a headliner act later that night. It is loud, dusty and unforgettable. Tickets sell fast for the headline concerts, so book early, and bring an appetite for the fair food that is a festival in itself.

Eat Your Way Through the Food City

Houstonians will argue endlessly about who makes the best barbecue, and you should take them up on it. I had slow cooked brisket that fell apart on the fork at one smokehouse, then creamy Gulf shrimp and fresh oysters on the road to Galveston. Beyond Texas classics, the city’s Little Saigon area serves Vietnamese pho as close to Hanoi as anything I have found in the US, and the dim sum halls of Chinatown fill up fast on weekend mornings, so arrive early. The city is also proud of its tortilla and taco tradition, so leave room to graze across several neighborhoods. Set aside at least two meal slots a day if you can, and ask the servers where they themselves would go rather than trusting a list.

Walk or Bike the Buffalo Bayou

For a break from the traffic, I walked the Buffalo Bayou park system, a ribbon of trails that winds through the center of town along the waterway. It is a calm counterpoint to the highways, and in the evening the bridges light up. Rent a bike if the weather is good, because the trails stretch for miles, and stop at a bayou side cafe for a cold drink when the heat builds. Houston sits close to the Gulf, so the air gets heavy in summer, and late afternoons here are often the smartest time to be outdoors.

Houston rewards effort. Come with an open appetite and a willingness to drive, use the light rail downtown where you can, and leave the outdoor events for the cooler months. Give it two or three days and let the sprawl show you its reasons. You will leave with a full stomach, a renewed respect for the space program and a stack of places you never quite got to.