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Frommer’s Star Ratings System
Every hotel, restaurant, and attraction listed in this guide has been ranked for quality and value. Here’s what the stars mean:
| Recommended | |
| Highly Recommended | |
| A must! Don't miss! |
AN IMPORTANT NOTE
The world is a dynamic place. Hotels change ownership, restaurants hike their prices, museums alter their opening hours, and buses and trains change their routings. And all of this can occur in the several months after our authors have visited, inspected, and written about, these hotels, restaurants, museums, and transportation services. Though we have made valiant efforts to keep all our information fresh and up-to-date, some few changes can inevitably occur in the periods before a revised edition of this guidebook is published. So please bear with us if a tiny number of the details in this book have changed. Please also note that we have no responsibility or liability for any inaccuracy or errors or omissions, or for inconvenience, loss, damage, or expenses suffered by anyone as a result of assertions in this guide.
Mission Concepción, one of five historic Spanish missions open to visitors in San Antonio.
CONTENTS
Exploring Texas Barbecue
San Marcos
New Braunfels & Gruene
A modern cowboy keeps the spirit of the West alive in the Hill Country.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Edie Jarolim has worn many hats, including a sombrero on one-margarita-too-many nights. She got a Ph.D. in American literature from NYU and was an editor at Frommer’s in New York before she indulged her warm weather—and large living space—fantasies and moved to Tucson, Arizona. She has written about the Southwest and Mexico for a variety of major publications, including National Geographic Traveler, Sunset, The Wall Street Journal, and USAToday.com. She’s the author of three travel guides, one dog guide, and one memoir. See www.ediejarolim.com for more details.
ABOUT THE FROMMER TRAVEL GUIDES
For most of the past 50 years, Frommer’s has been the leading series of travel guides in North America, accounting for as many as 24% of all guidebooks sold. I think I know why.
Though we hope our books are entertaining, we nevertheless deal with travel in a serious fashion. Our guidebooks have never looked on such journeys as a mere recreation, but as a far more important human function, a time of learning and introspection, an essential part of a civilized life. We stress the culture, lifestyle, history, and beliefs of the destinations we cover, and urge our readers to seek out people and new ideas as the chief rewards of travel.
We have never shied from controversy. We have, from the beginning, encouraged our authors to be intensely judgmental, critical—both pro and con—in their comments, and wholly independent. Our only clients are our readers, and we have triggered the ire of countless prominent sorts, from a tourist newspaper we called “practically worthless” (it unsuccessfully sued us) to the many rip-offs we’ve condemned.
And because we believe that travel should be available to everyone regardless of their incomes, we have always been cost-conscious at every level of expenditure. Though we have broadened our recommendations beyond the budget category, we insist that every lodging we include be sensibly priced. We use every form of media to assist our readers, and are particularly proud of our feisty daily website, the award-winning Frommers.com.
I have high hopes for the future of Frommer’s. May these guidebooks, in all the years ahead, continue to reflect the joy of travel and the freedom that travel represents. May they always pursue a cost-conscious path, so that people of all incomes can enjoy the rewards of travel. And may they create, for both the traveler and the persons among whom we travel, a community of friends, where all human beings live in harmony and peace.
Arthur Frommer
1
Trips from San Antonio
San Antonio sits at the southern edge of one of Texas’s prettiest regions, the rising and falling dreamscape of lakes, rivers, and limestone caverns called the Hill Country. In the 19th century, Germans and Czechs, fleeing social upheavals in Europe and lured by the promise of free land, established several small towns here; other settlements go back to the region’s cattle-ranching past. Eventually, the Hill Country’s mild climate and abundant springs gave rise to health spas, summer camps, and guest ranches. Modern tourism, in turn, brought restaurants, shops, lodgings, and a resurgent wine industry.
Any of these towns makes an easy day trip from San Antonio; you might even be able to do two in one trip (stopping in Boerne, for example, on the way to Bandera). Fredericksburg has the most accommodations and things to see and do; it also makes a good base for touring the other towns and attractions, including LBJ country. For a full listing of Hill Country events, see the Travel Texas website: www.traveltexas.com/cities-regions/hill-country/events.
Most of the towns covered here lie northwest of San Antonio, but if you head northeast via I-35, you can also visit New Braunfels, Gruene, San Marcos, Wimberley, and other destinations detailed as day trips from Austin in Chapter 17.
Boerne
32 miles NW of San Antonio
From downtown San Antonio, it’s a straight shot north on I-10 to Boerne (rhymes with “journey”), located on the banks of Cibolo Creek. The little (2¼ miles long) town was founded in 1849 by freedom-seeking German intellectuals, including Jewish-German political writer and satirist Ludwig Börne (1786–1837), for whom the town was named. In the 1880s, Boerne became a popular health resort. It’s now the seat of Kendall County, with more than 16,000 residents. The Boerne Visitors Center, 108 Oak Park Dr., off Main Street (www.visitboerne.org;