Discover America USA Travel Guide

The Southwest

Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park. www.TravelTex.com (Radius Images, Jupiter Images)

From the Gulf of Mexico to the Grand Canyon, in high deserts and on sprawling prairies, the Southwest is simply enormous. Drive across this region on a classic American road trip - you can even follow old Route 66 for some of the way. Discover down-home hospitality in small farming and ranching towns, or superb restaurants, fine arts and nightlife in glittering cities. Try your luck in the casinos of Nevada and on many Native American reservations. The borderlands of the Southwest have a vibrant mix of Mexican, cowboy and Native American culture – ancient pueblos, fiery cuisine, rodeos, powwows, and historic adobe buildings – all set against a backdrop of stunning landscapes and magnificent sunsets.

Discover down-home hospitality in small farming and ranching towns, or superb restaurants, fine arts and nightlife in glittering cities.

Try your luck in the casinos of Nevada and on many Native American reservations. The borderlands of the Southwest have a vibrant mix of Mexican, cowboy and
Native American culture — ancient pueblos, fiery cuisine, rodeos, powwows, and historic adobe buildings — all set against a backdrop of stunning landscapes and magnificent sunsets.

Texas is the second-largest state in the country, both in size and population. Its seven diverse regions belie the usual image of tumbleweeds blowing across a dusty, abandoned plain. The Piney Woods region of east Texas, Southwest for instance, is covered in pine and hardwood forests and adjoins the huge Prairies and Lakes region.

The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex forms the state’s largest urban center. Dallas is all glitz and glamour, with world-class restaurants, shopping and entertainment. Among its stellar attractions are striking downtown skyscrapers, the Dallas Museum of Art and Fair Park with its museums, aquarium, Music Hall and fairgrounds. The Sixth Floor Museum is one of several memorials to President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated here in 1963.

Fort Worth retains its cowboy character in the cobbled streets and boardwalks of the Stockyards National Historic District. Have a drink at the White Elephant Saloon or Billy Bob’s Texas (“the world’s largest honky-tonk”) or see a rodeo at the Cowtown Coliseum. In the cultural district, visit the highly acclaimed Kimbell Art Museum, the Amon Carter Museum with its fine collection of western art, and the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame.

Located between the two large cities, Grapevine’s historic Main Street and vintage steam railroad take you back a step in time. Visit the tasting rooms of local wineries. Thirty miles north of Dallas, in McKinney, turn-of-the century homes line the streets of the historic district.

More than one hundred restaurants and shops are located downtown, including the district’s centerpiece: the beautifully restored Collin County Courthouse, built in 1875 and now the Heard-Craig Center for the Arts.

Abilene calls itself “A Cow Town That Became a College Town.” Located two hours west of Fort Worth, it is, in fact, a town with three colleges and a rich heritage of museums and festivals.

The Gulf Coast has deep-sea fishing, swimming and sailing along 624 miles of coastline. Catch a ferry to Port Aransas on the tip of Mustang Island. This barrier island is a great place for beachcombing, birdwatching and water sports. South Padre Island is the Gulf’s top surfing spot, with beautiful beaches and dunes. In Harlingen you’ll find tropical birds, plants and citrus groves.

Houston, the biggest city in Texas, is famous for the NASA Space Center, which directed the first moon landing. This young city has modern architecture and smart shopping malls like The Galleria. The Menil Collection, Museum of Fine Arts and the Rothko Chapel top the list in the city’s Museum District.

With its River Walk, Market Square and historic Alamo, San Antonio is a favorite stop. Its Mexican flavor carries on down to the border through the South Texas Plains, a region of mesquite-covered terrain once travelled by Spanish conquistadors and missionaries. The Rio Grande Valley is a prime birding area. There are several key bird viewing sites around Mission, home of the Texas Citrus Fiesta in January.

The green rolling hills, lakes and rivers of the Hill Country region characterize central Texas. The state capital, Austin, is a lively, liberal city known as the “live music capital of the world.”

Amid the rolling farmland of the Panhandle Plains region, Amarillo is a modern working cowboy town and gateway to Palo Duro Canyon, second-largest in the country. Don’t miss Cadillac Ranch, a quirky artwork of nosedown automobiles buried in the ground, west of town on I-40. Lubbock is surrounded by ranches and wineries. It honors its most famous — and most musical — native son at the Buddy Holly Center.

El Paso, the largest U.S. city on the Mexican border, anchors Big Bend Country. Visit historic forts, rustic towns and beautiful Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains national parks amidst the quintessential west Texas landscape of mountains, scrub brush and desert.

With its friendly small towns, huge farms and ranches, the state of Kansas has long been a symbol of America’s heartland. The Flint Hills contain the largest remaining stand of America’s legendary tall grass prairie. Explorers, outlaws and pioneers crossed this fertile landscape, and their stories are told in numerous historic sites and museums. There are modern attractions, too. The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson is rapidly becoming the most comprehensive space museum anywhere.

You can take a motorized tour of a buffalo herd at the Maxwell Wildlife Refuge, visit a working salt mine in Hutchinson or soak up Wild West history at Dodge City’s Boot Hill Museum. Wichita hosts several major celebrations annually, including, in mid-summer, a flight festival that pays tribute to the area’s rich aviation heritage.

From the high plains of its western panhandle to the Ozark Highlands, Oklahoma has scenic variety. Nearly a quarter of the state is covered by forests. There are four mountain ranges and two hundred manmade lakes for recreation. The state’s diverse terrain includes Rocky Mountain foothills, cypress swamps, tallgrass prairies, hardwood forests and pine-covered mountains. The long list of agricultural products that thrive in Oklahoma includes wine grapes, too, as the state now has 34 wineries.

Oklahoma is home to more Native American tribes than anywhere else in the country; thirty-nine nations have headquarters here. You can attend numerous powwows, dances and festivals. If on the other hand, you want a cowboy experience, Oklahoma dude ranches offer authentic western experiences.

Oklahoma City is the only capital in the world with an oil well drilled underneath it. Watch cowboys working livestock at the Stockyards, see the superb collection of Western art at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum or admire the large collection of Chihuly art glass at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. In Tulsa, the Gilcrease Museum is home to the world’s most comprehensive collection of American Western art. This oil boomtown also has beautiful Art Deco architecture and the Philbrook Museum of Art, set in a historic mansion and gardens.

The Rocky Mountains make their last stand in northern New Mexico, with stunning scenery and ski resorts around Taos and Santa Fe. These cities are nationally acclaimed art colonies, with a wealth of fine museums, mission churches, historic adobes and Southwestern architecture. The capital, Albuquerque, has a delightful Old Town and the impressive Native American Pueblo Cultural Center.

Explore ancient Native American ruins at Bandelier National Monument and Chaco Culture National Park, or visit pueblos throughout northern New Mexico where native peoples live today. Acoma and Taos pueblos are highly evocative. You can also buy beautiful pottery and jewelry from Native American artists in this area. Further south, follow the trail of Billy the Kid around Lincoln or search for UFOs at Roswell. Hike through the phenomenal White Sands National Monument and visit the fascinating Museum of Space History at Alamogordo. Explore the awesome mineral formations of Carlsbad Caverns, one of the world’s largest cave systems.

Another fascinating underground world lies over the border in Arizona at Kartchner Caverns, a “living cave” that’s still growing. In southern Arizona, you’ll see multi-armed saguaro cactuses towering over the desert against fiery sunsets. This region is home to quaint mining towns like Bisbee, the lore of the Wild West in Tombstone and a superb collection of Native American artifacts at the Amerind Foundation near Benson. Visit the art colony of Tubac and beautiful mission churches at Tumacacori and San Xavier del Bac. Hike among the massive rock columns of the Chiricahua National Monument or go birding in the southern Arizona canyons.

Discover remarkable plants and wildlife at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in a wonderful open-air setting near Tucson. Walk among forests of tall cactuses in Saguaro National Park or beneath the futuristic glass domes of the Biosphere 2 research center. In Phoenix, the state capital, visit the Heard Museum for some of the finest Native American art in the country. Enjoy spas, golf courses and great shopping in the neighboring city of Scottsdale.

Stunning red-rock formations and canyons surround Sedona, also known as a center for New Age living. But Arizona is much more than desert. A quarter of the state is covered in forest, providing shady trails at Oak Creek Canyon and vast tracts of green in the northern mountains. Flagstaff is gateway to the Grand Canyon, among the great natural wonders of the world. For breathtaking views, walk along the rim trail at the southern entrance. To walk the Skywalk over the canyon’s edge, drive west to Grand Canyon West.

Massive Hoover Dam sits on the border with Nevada, channeling the mighty Colorado River into the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. The glittering neon lights and extravagant casinos of nearby Las Vegas are legendary. Even if you don’t gamble, stop here to take in the spectacle and enjoy the world-class entertainment. Reno, the self-proclaimed “Biggest Little City in the World,” offers more glitz and glamour a few hundred miles north of Las Vegas.

At Carson City, Nevada’s capital, and nearby Virginia City you can see beautiful Victorian mansions and historic buildings from the towns’ mining boom heydays. Beyond, beautiful Lake Tahoe, second-deepest lake in the country, shares the border with California.

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