The list keeps growing. The picks stay opinionated.
4 picks from Dallas.
A city at 7,000 feet where the light actually does what the paintings say it does. Canyon Road galleries, green chile on everything, a hotel that's been here since the railroad came through. Santa Fe is the Southwest destination that doesn't try to be Sedona.
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Bathhouse Row in a national park, a mid-century motor lodge with thermal water piped into the rooms, and a town that never forgot what it was built for. Hot Springs isn't a spa resort pretending to be authentic — it's the original American spa town that happens to still work.
Six hours west of Dallas, the desert town that art made famous finally lives up to the hype. Chinati Foundation installations in old artillery sheds, a hotel that used to be a water-stop tavern, and a sky so dark the Milky Way looks fake. Marfa works because it never tries.
Three hours south on I-35, Austin stops being a tech-bro punch line the second you check into the Carpenter Hotel and walk to Launderette for dinner. East Sixth is still a mess, but Rainey Street after 10pm and Franklin's at 9am are both worth the specific effort.
