8 Small Towns in Texas That Are Worth the Long Drive to Reach

I will almost always take the long way. Give me the two-lane road, the roadside pie, and the town whose name I can barely pronounce until a local corrects me with a grin.

Texas is enormous, and the best of it hides in the small places wedged between the big ones. There is a slow-porch charm to a courthouse square at dusk, a limestone storefront, a dance hall that has been shuffling boots for well over a century.

Below are eight Texas towns that pay you back for the extra miles. Historic squares, riverside dance floors, high-desert art, and brick streets older than most of the state’s paved highways. Point the car, roll the windows down, and go find them.

1. Jefferson, Texas

Deep in East Texas, where the pines close in and the water goes still, sits a Victorian riverport that time forgot in the best possible way.

They call Jefferson the “Queen of the Bayou.” In the 1840s it was one of the largest inland ports in Texas, the farthest west a steamboat from New Orleans could reach up the Big Cypress Bayou. When the water dropped and the railroads bypassed it, the town simply stopped changing.

What is left is a downtown of gingerbread trim, gaslit corners, and grand old bed-and-breakfasts like the 1858 Excelsior House. You can tour Jay Gould’s private railroad car, parked right across the street, and browse blocks of antique shops.

Save plenty of time for the water that made the town. A bayou boat tour drifts you under cypress trees draped in Spanish moss, and after dark, someone will happily talk you into a candlelit ghost walk. The old Jefferson General Store still scoops nickel coffee at the counter.

More than fifty buildings here wear a state historical marker, and the whole downtown is protected as a National Historic Landmark district. Ride the old-fashioned train that still loops the edge of town, and you can almost hear the steamboat whistles.

Where: Jefferson Visitor Center, 305 E Austin St, Jefferson, TX 75657.

2. Gruene, Texas

Tucked along the Guadalupe River just outside New Braunfels, tiny Gruene is barely a few blocks long, and every one of them is worth walking.

The anchor is Gruene Hall, built in 1878 and still the oldest continually operating dance hall in Texas. Admission is often free, and there is live music most days.

The tin roof, the open side flaps, and the worn wooden floor look almost exactly as they did when Willie Nelson and George Strait played here on the way up.

Around it you get an old general store selling penny candy, an antique co-op, and the Gristmill restaurant tucked into a burned-out 1870s cotton gin above the river. In summer, half of Texas floats past on inner tubes.

Once a month, Gruene Market Days brings antiques dealers and craftspeople out onto the lawn, and the old water tower overhead may be the most photographed thing in town.

I would grab a table on the porch, order the chicken-fried steak, and let the afternoon go long. There is no rushing a place this small.

Where: Gruene Hall, 1281 Gruene Rd, New Braunfels, TX 78130.

3. Rockport, Texas

Down on the Gulf Coast, where the shrimp boats come in loaded and the light does something painters chase, Rockport has been an artists’ town for generations.

The waterfront is lined with galleries and studios, anchored by the Rockport Center for the Arts. Admission stays free, and the sculpture garden alone is worth the stop before you wander out to Fulton Harbor to watch the fleet unload the day’s catch.

Rockport Beach was the first Texas beach to earn a Blue Wave clean-water certification, with calm, shallow water that is easy on little swimmers. The nearby Fulton Mansion shows off the town’s Victorian shipping-money heyday.

Do not miss the Big Tree, a coastal live oak estimated at more than a thousand years old, still standing through every hurricane the Gulf has thrown at it. It sits in Goose Island State Park, which protects miles of oak-shaded birding trail just north of town.

In winter, the whooping cranes arrive from Canada, and the birders follow with long lenses and folding chairs. Come spring, the wind-sculpted live oaks along Lamar leaf out into some of the prettiest driving on the coast.

Where: Rockport Center for the Arts, 106 S Austin St, Rockport, TX 78382.

4. Marfa, Texas

Out in the high desert of far West Texas, a tiny cattle town became one of the most unlikely art capitals in America, and it never lost the cowboy underneath.

The turn came when minimalist artist Donald Judd moved here in the 1970s and filled old army buildings with his work, now the Chinati Foundation. That legacy pulls a steady stream of gallery hoppers to a town of under two thousand people.

The mix is the charm. A taco truck can sit right next to a serious contemporary art space, and nobody in Marfa blinks at it. The stately 1886 courthouse and the old Hotel Paisano, where the cast of the film Giant once stayed, still anchor downtown.

Bed down at El Cosmico, a field of restored vintage trailers, safari tents, and teepees on the edge of town that has become a pilgrimage for design lovers.

Drive out to Prada Marfa, the lonely faux-boutique planted beside the highway near Valentine, then stay for dark. Nine miles east on U.S. 90 sits the viewing area for the Marfa Lights, the mysterious glow locals have argued about for more than a hundred years.

Where: Marfa Lights Viewing Area, U.S. Highway 90, about 9 miles east of Marfa, TX 79843.

5. Granbury, Texas

Southwest of Fort Worth, wrapped around a lake, Granbury built its whole downtown around a courthouse square, and it may be the prettiest one in the state.

The 1891 limestone Hood County Courthouse anchors a square added to the National Register in 1974. Just off it, the Granbury Opera House has been staging shows since 1886, and the storefronts around it hold bakeries, boutiques, wine bars, and old-fashioned soda counters.

Then there is the water. Lake Granbury laps almost up to downtown, with its own little beach and marina, so you can shop the square in the morning and swim in the afternoon.

Time your visit for the holidays if you can. Granbury lights the whole square for Christmas, and the reflection off the lake makes the drive over worth it on its own.

The town also leans into its ghost stories with lantern-lit walking tours, and old-fashioned paddlewheel and pontoon cruises loop the water on warm summer evenings.

Where: Granbury Opera House, 133 E Pearl St, Granbury, TX 76048.

6. Wimberley, Texas

An hour from Austin, folded into the hills where the Blanco River meets Cypress Creek, Wimberley is the Hill Country weekend a lot of Texans quietly keep to themselves.

The shady Wimberley Square is a cluster of locally owned shops, galleries, and wine rooms wrapped around the creek. On the first Saturday of the month, Wimberley Market Days unfolds with more than 450 booths of antiques and crafts, and admission is still free.

When the heat climbs, everyone heads to Blue Hole Regional Park, a cypress-shaded swimming spot with a rope swing and cold, clear green water. Swimming season runs May through Labor Day, and reservations go fast.

For a bigger view, hike Old Baldy, a short steep climb up a couple hundred stone steps that opens onto the whole valley. Then reward the legs with a stop at Wimberley Glassworks to watch a piece get blown.

Just up the road, Jacob’s Well feeds the creek from a spring so clear you can watch swimmers disappear into the blue. It is one of the most photographed watering holes in Texas, and a reminder of how these hills hold their secrets.

Where: Blue Hole Regional Park, 100 Blue Hole Ln, Wimberley, TX 78676.

7. Nacogdoches, Texas

Back in the eastern pines sits the oldest town in Texas, a place where the streets themselves are a history lesson written in brick.

Nacogdoches traces its roots to 1779, and the brick-paved downtown, first laid in 1923, is listed in its entirety on the National Register. You can walk from a centuries-old crossroads to a coffee shop and a local brewery in a single block.

It sits on El Camino Real, the old royal road that once linked Spanish Texas, and the Old Stone Fort and the Sterne-Hoya House keep that deep history close at hand. Come in June and the Texas Blueberry Festival takes over Main Street with pie, music, and pick-your-own baskets.

It wears another crown too: Garden Capital of Texas. Thanks to the university’s gardens, thousands come each spring for the eleven-acre Ruby M. Mize Azalea Garden, the largest in the state, when the whole town seems to bloom pink and white at once. Stay for the blueberries and the barbecue.

Where: Charles Bright Visitor Center, 200 E Main St, Nacogdoches, TX 75961.

8. Salado, Texas

Halfway between Austin and Waco, most drivers blow right past Salado on the interstate, which is exactly how this little artisan village likes it.

Main Street runs through 19th-century limestone buildings now filled with galleries, antique shops, and working studios where you can watch glass being blown. The pace is deliberately slow, set by Salado Creek rippling right through the middle of downtown.

The white-columned Stagecoach Inn has been putting up travelers since the 1860s, back when this was a real stop on the old stage road between Austin and points north.

Wander down to the Main Street bridge to find Sirena, the town’s bronze maiden-turned-mermaid, then follow the shaded walkways of the Salado Sculpture Garden. Over at Pace Park you can still see wagon-wheel ruts worn into the limestone creek bed by pioneers.

Glassblowers, potters, and bronze artists keep studios tucked along the creek, and the village throws a beloved art fair on the green each fall that draws collectors from across the state.

Time the fourth Friday of the month for the Royal Street Art Walk, when the shops stay open late, music fills the street, and the whole village feels like a party you were personally invited to.

Where: Salado Sculpture Garden, 113 Salado Plaza Dr, Salado, TX 76571.

Start Planning Your Texas Back-Roads Trip

You could string these together into one long loop, or pick two and make a lazy weekend of it. The point is the same either way: get off the big highway and let the small towns do their work on you.

So fill the tank, cue up something with a fiddle in it, and go say yes to the exit you usually drive past. The best of Texas has always been just a little out of the way.

Featured image: Visit Salado