Texas Hill Country Trail

If you aren’t already aware, the Texas Hill Country Trail is the official driving route through the rolling hills of central Texas. It encompasses the cities of Austin and San Antonio to the east and wild, empty mountains to the west. I drove the whole loop in January 2021 but even driving straight through and stopping very little, it took me more than a day. If you want to stop in each town and do the museums and look through all the shops, plan for about a week of touring.

I drove the majority of the trail from Cedar Park (where I stayed) counterclockwise to San Antonio in one day but it was a looong day and I arrived late. Then a few days later, I went the opposite way on the loop to spend more time on the San Antonio Riverwalk during the daytime.

Cedar Park

I’ll start with Cedar Park just because that’s where I began my journey but you could just as easily start the loop from any point. And Cedar Park is really just a suburb of Austin. It’s mostly neighborhoods, though there are definitely some good restaurants here.

I enjoyed this location because from my driveway, I could turn right into town (and some good food trucks) or turn left, round the corner, and suddenly the hill country appears in dramatic fashion. Several small towns directly to the west of Austin claim to be the “gateway to the hill country” but none are as dramatic as the exit from Cedar Park.

But, if you are spending any time here, there is a tourist train that goes into the hill country from here. There is also a cute little sculpture garden behind the city rec center.

Marble Falls

The first named stop on the trail is Marble Falls. The “falls” of Marble Falls are long gone, flooded in 1951. But there is a Falls on the Colorado Museum that’s worth a stop. Otherwise, I didn’t find much of a downtown to speak of.

Just past Marble Falls, on the shores of the flooded Colorado River, are a few little holiday villages on the lake. They look like a cute local getaway.

Llano

Llano is a fun town to visit. There’s a visitor’s center with an artful garden and the Llano County Museum, housed in the founding father’s 1900’s drugstore. The wide Llano River cuts through town with a bridge connecting the museum side with the courthouse side.

The courthouse is really pretty too – a lot of the county courthouses in Texas are really unique. This one has a tower on the corner of the building and is surrounded by some cute storefronts.

Detour to Enchanted Rock

It’s not on the official loop, but nearby is Enchanted Rock State Natural Area. Enchanted Rock is the second-biggest batholith in the US (after Sierra Nevada.) Meaning, it’s a really big granite dome that just popped out of the earth like a bubble. You can walk on the 11 miles of trails around, and on, the rock and there are camping facilities here.

I didn’t stick around long enough to walk around. In fact, the lady in the booth let me in to take pictures without even charging me, which was very nice! Afterward, I drove on some back-country roads to get back on track, which was really fun.

Johnson City

Johnson City, named for the founding family of President Lyndon B Johnson, contains a really nice National Historic Park dedicated to the man himself and the pioneers of the town. LBJ’s childhood home is here, with a well-maintained pioneer village featuring barns and houses of the early settlers. During non-Covid times, I think there are more goings-on here than I saw. But I did get a close look at some longhorn cows, which is pretty cool. (And there’s a bathroom here, vital on these small-town road trips!)

Elsewhere in the town are art galleries and shops, some good-looking coffee shops and restaurants, and a fun place called the Science Mill.

Stonewall

Also part of the LBJ Historic Park is the Johnson family ranch 14 miles west in Stonewall. Here, you can tour the “Texas White House” that President Johnson made into a showplace. A tour is here is definitely worth it. I turned in and drove around and didn’t see anything, so I must have missed it altogether. For a real visit, check in at the visitors’ center for tours.

Fredericksburg

Even if you don’t do the whole loop, Fredericksburg is worth a stop or even a couple of days. Many of the towns in the hill country were settled by Germans (Llano was also, for instance.) But here in Fredericksburg, the German influence is overt. There are German restaurants, the central park is a biergarten, and the county museum is in the recreated octagonal kirche (church.)

Shopping is the name of the game here, with boutique shops of all kinds lining either side of the main street. At one end is the National Museum of the Pacific War, housed partly in the ship-looking Nimitz Hotel. On the other end of the strip is a Pioneer Museum. Don’t forget to stray off the main street – I found a great pie shop and a lady that sells handmade soap from her parlor.

Kerrville

The university town of Kerrville is next on the trail. Schreiner University operates the founding father’s Schreiner Mansion downtown as a Hill Country Museum. Also in Kerrville is the expansive Museum of Western Art.

Past Kerrville, the drive coincides with the Guadalupe River, which is a really pretty, almost glacier green.

Leaky/Camp Wood

Getting out past Kerrville and the westernmost edge of the Hill Country Trail is where I lose cell service. Towns are smaller and more spread out, and the hills become veritable mountains. It’s wonderful driving, but there’s not much to stop for.

Leaky is an adventure town, geared towards summer tubing of the Rio Frio. Here, the Real County Historical Museum gives a view into early settler life on the river.

Camp Wood is the farthest edge of the trail and consists of little more than a crossroads. (But there is a fudge shop!)

Uvalde

Cell service comes back briefly in Uvalde, home to a beautiful opera house and pretty town square. Vice President John Nance Garner bought the opera house and donated it to the city. And museums in Garner’s former home and on Garner airfield are other areas of interest in town.

Concan/Utopia

Smaller towns on the way to the next major stop of Bandera head north from Uvalde (and away from cell service) and from flat land back into the hills. I catch the setting sun and the rising moon on my way north and east.

Bandera

Bandera, the “Cowboy Capital of the West” has a pretty courthouse and a unique Frontier Times Museum. A small plaza with bathrooms showcases a mural and a dynamic cowboy statue.

San Antonio

You can definitely spend a week or two in San Antonio and not see everything. Museums abound, you can’t forget the Alamo! And all the dining and shopping you can expect in a big city.

My focus is mainly on the Riverwalk and I’m not disappointed. I had a cheap Mexican meal at the historic Casa Rio restaurant and took a boat tour. Also, I walked around and up to the Alamo, which is nearby.

Walking along the Riverwalk, you’ll find hotels, shopping, and lots of dining. Little bridges cross over every so often and there is even a stage that spans the river at one point – seating on one side and stage on the other. Above the theater is a small shopping village with a pretty chapel.

The boat tour can be hit or miss. I saw boats pull right up to Casa Rio during a mariachi performance and heard lively commentary flow by while I sat and ate. But on my tour, my guide was not nearly as dynamic. There are a few places on the river to buy tickets and board but they all seem to take the same route.

The main commercial section of the Riverwalk is a loop with one spur out to a shopping mall. You can walk through this mall to get to the Alamo. The opposite arm of that spur takes you to a pretty cove and the Hemisfair Park. A northern arm eventually reaches the San Antonio Museum of Art.

There’s plenty of (pricy) parking at street level with multiple stairs and elevators down to the river level.

At night, they apparently decided to keep up the Christmas lights at least until Valentine’s Day. I’m not sure if that’s normal or if it’s special for these trying times. Either way, it’s awfully pretty.

New Braunfels

Another overtly German town, New Braunfels was founded by a prince! There used to be a castle on a hill dedicated to his fiance, now there’s an archive and museum.

Of personal interest, the two halves of the Schlitterbahn water park are located in New Braunfels! There’s also river tubing – I passed a public park that seemed to be an entry point.

A cool little heritage village (called Conservation Plaza) is tucked away off the main road. Nearby is the Museum of Texas Handmade Furniture.

Wurstfest is the big festival in town, currently slated for November 5-14, 20201.

San Marcos

San Marcos is another university town (Texas State) with a river running through it. I completely managed to miss the river, in favor of it’s charming courthouse square.

There is more LBJ history here, including a free museum on the square covering his college days. Also of interest is the Wittliff Collections on campus and the Army Airfield. And don’t forget the river! There’s tubing.

Wimberly

Wimberly isn’t a named stop on the official trail but I was completely blown away by this little town! It’s incredibly cute with lots of shopping and restaurants. One shop a short walk off the square is possibly the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

The other draw for Wimberly nature. Blue Hole Park and tubing and swimming in Cypress Creek are adjacent to downtown itself. A little farther north is Jacob’s Well, another summer swimming and hiking area.

Dripping Springs

Less interesting than Wimberly but an official stop on the Hill Country Trail is Dripping Springs. The only thing really of note here is the Dr. Pound Pioneer Farmstead. a meticulously preserved original homestead of the founding physician. You can find it in a recreational park with sports fields and a swimming pool.

Bee Cave

Another unofficial stop on the trail is Bee Cave, and the last town before your reach Cedar Park. There’s not much here but I did find a cute sculpture park behind the fire station that is worth getting out and walking around.

It’s also in this corridor of Oak Hill to Johnson City to Fredericksburg (cutting through the middle of the official loop) that you’ll find more wineries than you can sample in a single visit- there’s 62 on the official list.

Visiting the Texas Hill Country Trail

Knowing what I know now, I would either base my hill country stay in San Antonio, or start or end there after or before a tour of the Hill Country Trail.

A suggested itinerary – Day One

In fact, if I sit and think about it, I could see spending a week in San Antonio, visiting all the museums and the Riverwalk. Then head west on the trail to Bandera for a taste of real cowboy culture and the Frontier Times Museum and lunch. A drive through the hills around Utopia then an afternoon at the Garner sites in Uvalde and possible a show at the Opera House in the evening. All that wilderness would be a good detox from the city.

Day Two

The next day, head north for real mountain driving up through Leaky and to Kerrville for a visit of Schreiner’s Mansion, lunch, and the Museum of Western Art. (Though I suspect the Schreiner’s Mansion hours are limited – it seems like a noon-2 only on Tuesdays kind of place. And no website!) Then north to Fredericksburg for shopping, dinner, and a three-night stay.

Days Three & Four

In Fredericksburg, reserve most of one day for the three museums (starting with the Pacific War, I think), plus plenty of eating and shopping. Then a morning hike of Enchanted Rock the second day, followed by a day trip to Johnson City, Stonewall, and all the LBJ sites.

Day Five

The next morning (after a parting German pastry, natch) head north to Llano and visit the small museum there and walk around the courthouse. I’d go with a snack in Marble Falls, especially if you visit the Falls on the Colorado Museum. That way. you can have lunch in Cedar Park. I’d suggest an afternoon train ride but it looks like all departures are in the morning on Saturdays, at least for now. Instead, you can continue down through Bee Cave and Oak Hill to Dripping Springs for an afternoon tour of the Dr. Pound Farmstead. Then dinner, shopping, and a night’s stay in Wimberly.

Alternate Days Five & Six

(As an alternative to the above after the lunch stop in Cedar Park, and adding a day, would be to explore some wineries in the afternoon along the Oak Hill corridor, then have dinner and stay the night in Austin. Then – if your timing is right – take the morning train from Cedar Park and seek out some food trucks for lunch. Then an afternoon in Dripping Springs and evening in Wimberly. If Saturday morning train rides are the norm, it would require starting this trip on a Monday.)

Day Six & Seven (or Seven & Eight)

A morning in Wimbley should include some hiking around Jacob’s Well, possibly some swimming and/or tubing in Cypress Creek. Lunch and more shopping (especially if the shops closed before you arrived the night before.) Then an afternoon visiting San Marcos (and maybe tubing there instead.) The night then could be spent in New Braunfels, followed by a day’s visit to Schlitterbahn for a ride around endless lazy rivers.

That itinerary would take seven days, eight if you include the extra day around Austin. More if you include some actual Austin sites, like the Museum of the Weird. It also requires that everything be open – most of the museums are currently closed. (And I visited in the winter, so no tubing, swimming, or water parks during that time.)

This itinerary is untested, so it may not all work out as stated, but that’s what I would try to do the next time I visit!