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With the city hosting seven World Cup matches, fans will discover a welcoming and vibrant part of Texas, writes Will Slater
The Artemis II trip to the far side of the moon earlier this year recaptured something of the spirit of adventure and optimism that once characterised the Apollo-era missions to space by NASA.
Then as now, mission control was in Houston at the Johnson Space Center, where around 11,000 people work, astronauts are trained and the International Space Station and the Orion spacecraft are managed.
It is also a must-visit attraction, which has vast displays of artefacts from the American space programme over the decades, including a Shuttle which you can walk through and a piece of the moon which you can touch. General admission (adults $29.95-$39.95 online, spacecenter.org) includes two free tram tours of the vast site, including of the NASA Campus and to the George W.S. Abbey Rocket Park, where one of the three remaining Saturn rockets resides. We were also booked on to Historic Mission Control Tour ($15), a completely restored room from the Apollo era, which uses archive footage to revisit the moon landing. It is an inspiring, fascinating place and a highlight of our visit to America’s fourth biggest city of around 2.4 million.
The historic League-Kempner House, which was built in 1893 and now undergoing restoration, sits on on Broadway, home of many of Galveston's grand 'golden era' buildings (Picture: Will Slater)placeholder image
The historic League-Kempner House, which was built in 1893 and now undergoing restoration, sits on on Broadway, home of many of Galveston's grand 'golden era' buildings (Picture: Will Slater)
Our next bucket list moment was to watch an NFL game. At the time we visited, the Houston Texans (houstontexans.com) had not enjoyed a great start to the season having lost the first three games, but we and the huge crowd at the 72,000 capacity NRG stadium came in hope. It was friendly, fun and a bit chaotic. Every break in play for a TV ad, of which there were many, was filled with some entertainment or event; a mariachi band, the cheerleaders, a buggy zooming round launching T-shirts into the crowd, a presentation to a military veteran or youth group, the kiss cam. It doesn’t stop for the three hours or so it takes to complete the game, by which time the Texans had beaten the Tennessee Titans 26-0. We brought the luck as their season was transformed as they made their way to the play-offs. The stadium, which has a retractable roof and is air conditioned, will be hosting seven matches in the World Cup, beginning with Germany v Curaçao tomorrow.
Houston flies under the radar a bit, but it’s a great place to visit. Fuelled by money from the oil industry, it has all the flashy skyscrapers of downtown you could wish for, fantastic museums and galleries to visit and a buzzing social and foodie scene.
Some of that energy and confidence was evident at our 71-room boutique Hotel Saint Augustine. Based in the trendy Montrose neighbourhood, and close to the Rothko Chapel and free-to-enter Menil Collection gallery, it’s a walkable part of the city. Our room was lovely and there’s a pool to hang around. And while hotel bars can be a byword for dull, on Friday and Saturday night, the one at Saint Augustine was buzzing and something of a destination as plenty of young non-residents stopped by for a drink.
Our dinner on Saturday night was a stroll away at Candente, a fabulous Michelin Bib Gourmand Tex-Mex restaurant that was full of families and groups enjoying an evening out. It was only right that we had a couple of of margaritas and the prime beef and chicken fajitas were excellent. It was one of the culinary highlights of our Texas adventure.
Will Slater with one of the fish he caught with the help of guide Alex Porter in Port Aransas (Picture: Will Slater)placeholder image
Will Slater with one of the fish he caught with the help of guide Alex Porter in Port Aransas (Picture: Will Slater)
We left Houston the best way, wishing we could stay a little longer. Next up, around 50 miles or so away, the Gulf Coast city of Galveston awaited. It has a huge oil refinery and a fascinating, chequered history. Once the richest city in America thanks to its deep water port, a hurricane in 1900 claimed up to 12,000 lives and wiped out much of its prosperity. Today, its fortunes have been restored thanks to the cruise ship industry. Many of the the big players including Carnival, MSC, NCL, Royal Caribbean and Disney, use Galveston as a homeport, bringing 3.6 million passengers in 2025. As a result there are plenty of tourist souvenir shops to meet that need, but we found most interest in the lavish buildings of its golden era which are now open to the public, such as Bishops Palace and Moody Mansion, both on Broadway and built in the 1890s with no expense spared. We also enjoyed a harbour tour by boat and went round the lovingly restored and still-in-use Elissa Tall Ship, which was rescued from a Greek scrapyard in 1978.
We stayed at the smart Tremont Hotel, which has a great rooftop terrace for cocktails and an evening view over the city.
The vibe and energy at our final stop, Port Aransas, 200 miles south, is completely different. This is an out and out holiday beach destination with some fantastic fishing thrown in. It’s on Mustang Island, which is accessed via a bridge at one end and a free ferry at the other. A few thousand people live here year round but the numbers swell enormously in the summer. We are here at the tail end of the season but you get a hint of how things might be on a Friday night, as music blasts out from a nearby bar. Within certain areas it is legal to hire a golf cart to ride around the streets and you can access the huge stretches of beaches this way too. It’s a lot of fun and definitely puts you in the holiday mood. We are staying at the historic Tarpon Inn, which, depending on whose account you believe, was either a former civil war barracks, or built from spare timber from a civil war barracks in the 1880s. Either way it has charm in abundance though the rooms are more basic than modern hotels.
Our highlight involved getting up before dawn to meet up with Alex Porter, a wise, very friendly and patient fishing guide who took us out on his boat to the shallow, protected waters of the bay. You need a licence from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to fish, available at some local stores or online ($16pp for a day). Alex knows all the spots and made sure we were in among the fish. It was both incredibly peaceful and exciting as we hooked some red fish, losing some and landing others. Back at the harbour, there’s a fish preparation station and we were handed back a bag of lovely filets from our morning’s adventure. Lots of the local restaurants will cook what you catch, so we found one and had a late lunch of a couple of filets prepared with Cajun seasoning and served with a very cold beer. Heaven.
America As You Like It (www.americaasyoulikeit.com, 020 8742 8299) has a six-night holiday to Texas from £2090 per person, including return flights to Houston from Edinburgh on United Airlines, car hire, two nights at the Hotel Saint Augustine in Houston, two nights at the Tremont House in Galveston and two nights at the Tarpon Inn in Port Aransas. For more information, visit traveltexas.com