24 Hours in Houston: The Ultimate Guide to a Day of Non-Stop Adventure in Texas

continue in our series exploring Texas today we're spending 24 hours in the city of Houston come with us as we explore many of the city's incredible attractions showcasing the best of Houston's world-class museums barbecue scene vibrant folk art and even an unforgettable encounter with bats this is just a tiny taste of what makes Houston a must visit destination in Texas as long as it's not in the heat of the summer let us know what we left off in the comments and let's jump into 24 hours exploring Houston Texas starting with the waterfall no trip to Houston is complete without visiting Gerald D Hines waterfall Park this is one of my favorite places in the city and it's definitely something you have to experience yourself the waterfall was built in 1985 and it sits at 64 feet tall it's been described as a horseshoe of water and I have to say that's a pretty good description that's an awesome spot in Houston and it's also really cool at night as they light it up so you can come in the day or at night heading on be sure to walk around the back side of the waterfall as well also note that there's no street parking around you have to park in one of the Lots next up we headed over to Black Hole Coffee House the spot has great coffee and delicious pastries plus it has cool art on the walls I've never seen a blueberry muffin with that many blueberries and it pops as jealous of his choice right now after leaving coffee we have two options for you on what you can do next first up on the east side of downtown Houston is graffiti Park here you'll find a couple city blocks worth of buildings covered in murals well done the sky's the limit murals are things I love finding when I go to new cities as it shows a little bit about the city's art scene there's one more mural that you should see which is about a five minute drive away this is the other muralists in downtown Houston so you got if graffiti Park isn't your style the second option is to visit some of the folk art in Houston and that's to see the orange show and Smither Park the spot's located about 15 minutes outside of the city and while Smither Park is open during the week the orange show is only open on the weekends a Smither Park is worth driving out to though if you love folk art as it's a beautiful spot where over 300 artists have made different pieces spend some time exploring and if you're there with the family scan the QR code to get a scavenger hunt you can follow if you want to visit the orange show you have to get tickets in advance but they are only five dollars when I went it's basically a folk art monument in Houston and it was built by one man from 1956 to 1979. I'll have a lot more information on this spot in the full Texas road trip video if you're interested [Music] lastly you can drive all the way out to Space Center Houston as well I wouldn't recommend doing that without at least a half day though as there's a lot to see here I have another video on that in the description after finishing your visit you're probably hungry and we have a barbecue recommendation we're at truth barbecue about 30 minutes before they open and Pops us inside he's gonna go be first in line and sit there even though there's no one else waiting line baby second time truth barbecue is number three on Texas monthly's top barbecue places in the entire state people started showing up about 10 to 15 minutes before they open and when they opened there's probably 30 to 40 people in line twice now in these places I've got to be number one in line that never happens to me I just want to make sure you notice that once it opens you order your meat by the pound at the counter and they cut the meat in front of you and scoop the sides you can pick whatever you want to sit this Spa has a really great Vibe for lunch in the city and the food here was fantastic unfortunately I'm an amateur and I didn't turn the microphone on when I was recording so you can't hear anything we're saying but both my dad and I loved what we had at truth and this is one of my dad's favorite barbecue places in the state of Texas try the smoked turkey here as well it was definitely the best turkey we had on our Barbecue Road Trip if you don't know my dad and I are on a barbecue road trip so if you want to watch that video check it out up here but I will say if you want a real Texas barbecue experience and you're just in Houston truth is hands down and incredible experience great people and great food only two minutes down the road is the Art Car Museum and if you have a chance you should definitely stop by there after lunch is pretty small with only four to five cars on display but it is free to visit if you want to see it go to their website in order to make an appointment next up we made our way over to Hermann Park to explore we're going to the National History Museum but first we're going to the butterfly garden so some butterflies can land on pops if you're going to the Museum of Natural Science the butterfly exhibit was only a small add-on so we decided to do that first Imperial scorpion that's crazy look at this desert scorpion they had an awesome bug exhibit that you could see before the butterflies [Music] next we made our way into the rainforest Conservatory which is three stories tall and had a 50-foot waterfall in the middle this is where all the butterflies were and I was amazed by how many butterflies they had [Music] this is definitely one of the best butterfly gardens I've ever seen they're so active right now and they're everywhere we spent a good 30 minutes in here just walking around and seeing all of the Butterflies honestly it felt like there were thousands of butterflies and if you come to museum you should definitely do this gotta check yourself in the mirror and make sure you have no butterflies on you I can't believe they have a lifestyle version those are the ones that were attacking you in Alaska yeah that guy got me in Alaska it's Hugo's lifestyle they're born they find pups and then they suck the blood life out of me and die that's all they do it says right here and then they die and make more to find me later up next pops and I are gonna go see some dinosaurs this is an actual fossil that was found in Wyoming I have to say this is one of the best museum fossa collections I've ever seen on any of my travels [Music] I'm blown away by this Museum because of the amount of bees that they have like they're so intricate and just incredibly preserved it's well worth seeing the museum just to see this I mean look at this this is like a turtle oh I was told that the ones that have the poles supporting the whole body are real fossils and the ones that have just the feet are replicas still this is one of the best dinosaur museums I've ever seen we only spent about 45 minutes in this section but you could easily spend a few hours if you're interested best fossil of all time look at this Mammoth it knocked the guy into the air [Music] of course this is just one of many exhibits they have in this massive Museum and I would say it'd take an entire day to see it all this area was based on this painting everything that you see in here you can touch and interact with and there's cabinets you can open so pretty cool spot the last two exhibits we saw before leaving was one on Texas Wildlife and another on rare gems in case you were wondering while you're at the Museum you can also buy a dinosaur skull it's only 185 thousand dollars pretty cool to have hanging in your house though that's a fantastic Museum we barely scratched the surface of all the stuff you could do here we're gonna explore the park a little bit but there's a lot of other museums and a zoo so you can do a lot down here if you have the time so that's Sam Houston right there and Pops has been reading a history book on Texas who's Sam Houston Sam Houston was the main General that led the uh armies that fought for Texas Independence and won the huge battle at San Jacinto against Santa Ana this is the reflection pool but there's not much reflection today it's pretty windy this is a really beautiful Park these tree-lined walkways and the reflection pool definitely a nice place to explore for a couple hours or even a full day probably in Houston Hermann Park has been here for over a hundred years and it's up to 445 acres in the heart of Houston it has memorials monuments a lake a golf course and even a train that connects you throughout the property [Music] there's also a beautiful Japanese garden which is the last thing that we walked through during our visit that is a big koi fish right there Japanese garden is nice and it's free to enter so if you're looking for another place to explore you can definitely do this as well our next stop is a piece of art that was designed by the same person who made Cloud skate AKA The Bean in Chicago right there this piece is called Cloud column and it was made by famed artist Anish Kapoor thank you I will say it's pretty cool how it has this Hollow cut out in the middle it adds an interesting Dynamic to it it's one of a bunch of sculptures in this area and it's free to visit so it's definitely worth walking around pop says this is a broken donut how is it a broken donut it's like a bar that's broken in half a maple bar broken in half after seeing the sculptures we made our way back to where we parked and stopped at Centennial Gardens pops is already complaining because there's a lot of steps to walk to the top of this and he just wants to eat barbecue instead do this and make it very quickly is there brisket waiting at the top for pops right near the entrance there's a circular walkway that takes you up to the top of a large hill with a waterfall going down the side well at least we're adding some steps to our daily totals was it worth it no brisket it's nice up here important word so the sign said if you think of a year plant a seed if you think of 10 years plant trees and if you think of a hundred years teach the people school that this little bubbling brook right here leads to a smaller and then bigger and bigger and bigger all the way down to the bottom this is a fun and relaxing little walk but it started to rain on us as we were making our way down there's our first Bluebonnet of our Texas road trip this is the time late March early April that they come out next up it was time for dinner and so we headed over to The Hobbit Cafe but you might not know about pops is that he's one of the biggest Tolkien fans around of the books tell me how much you're a hater of the movies those of you who have actually read the books as many times as I've had I think I've read the books 15 times see how hard it is to be me The Hobbit Cafe is a themed restaurant dedicated to The Hobbit books created by J.R.R Tolkien [Laughter] it started in 1972 and it's supposedly one of the only themed restaurants that got approval by his family they sell a wide variety of healthy food options plus Mead as a veggie sandwich right there that's the slim version I got curry chicken salad with sauteed jalapenos on the side we're gonna do splitsies though so we can try each one pops is going with the curry curry chicken curry chicken with a sauteed jalapeno on top you got me I like the curry huh if you're a fan of Lord of the Rings you've got to go there but even if you're not they're actually really good food so definitely a recommendation we had one more thing we wanted to do right around Sunset so we had some time to kill and went to Urban South we actually went here because our waitress at The Hobbit Cafe told us that it was a great Brewery with lots of very unique beers it has an awesome Vibe and it's definitely a spot I come back to if I was in Houston plus while we're waiting I can challenge pop to a game of foosball that's right that's how it's done right there head now for our last stop in Houston seeing the bats [Music] we arrived about 25 minutes before Sunset it's a little bit dreary though right now with a little bit of drizzle so I don't know if the bats are going to come out but we'll see maybe we'll get lucky most people who visit know about the bat colony in Austin but there's actually a pretty significant back colony in Houston as well there's no parking right next to the bridge so I recommend parking about five minutes drive down the road and then just walking you can really hear the bats good in here all up in the rafters plus you can smell them too it smells pretty bad just like in Austin these are also Mexican free-tailed bats and they usually come out right around sunset just waiting for what is hopefully a good bat showing yep hopefully we'll get some bats out here tonight I feel like that Hawk up there is just kind of looking around trying to see if a bat's gonna come out about 10 minutes before the official sunset time the bats started to come out this one was especially impressive as there was a lot of bats and you're a lot closer to them than you are at the Austin Bridge even though I'm sure the colony is much smaller here it felt a lot bigger because of how close you were [Music] also in all my research I saw basically no other videos about the bats here so I don't know if this is a thing that people don't do but we really liked it how cool is that pops that was really cool really cool a lot of bats came out there man a lot yeah they said that that there's not as many bats here as there is in the one in Austin and I haven't been to the one Austin a long time but that was still really cool and well worth doing while you're in Houston that's going to do it for our Houston video thanks so much for spending the day with us let us know what your favorite spot is in Houston below and we will see you on the next video [Music]

Channel: Through My Lens

Views: 132,072

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Id: ZB1STxdP0nk

Length: 15min 38sec (938 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 04 2023