Austin, Texas, is well known for both its live music venues and its “green” ways, but beyond concerts and park hopping, visitors will find a well-rounded list of cultural attractions to fill days when the sun doesn’t shine. Or when it shines too bright. Really, can’t everyone use a bit of climate co...

Food:Abilene is situated solidly in steak country and Abilene cuisine tends toward the thick and meaty, even beyond steak; roast, barbecue, ribs, and hamburgers. This isn’t to say that other kinds of cuisine are completely left out. Mexican food of several varieties (from New Mexican to Sonoran) can...

Food:As the largest city in the Panhandle Plains, which is still most certainly cow country, Amarillo is steak town. The famous Big Texan Steak Ranch is here (remember, if you can eat a 72 ounce steak (plus all those side dishes) in an hour or less, it’s on the house!) Barbecue also has a significan...

Food:Austin is everything to everyone and its dining scene is no different. Austin is the “Live Music Capital of the World.” It’s only merely the restaurant capital of Texas, or, at least, it has more restaurants per capita than anywhere else in the state, but that’s a college town for you. The food...

Food:Cajun cuisine slips into most Beaumont menus; especially when it’s intermingled with downhome cooking and barbecue. Creole is another popular flavor here. Expect some dishes to come with French names and if you’re in the mood to have (or try) frog legs, crawfish, or barbecued crab with your gum...

Food:Some areas of Texas are centered in steak, others in Tex-Mex, others in Southwestern cuisine. Corpus Christi is about seafood. Most restaurants will have some kind of seafood dish included on their menu. You, yourself, can go catch a fish or go crabbing and have a restaurant cook it for you, or...

Food:If Austin boasts that it has more restaurants per capita than any other place in Texas, and is thus its restaurant capital, Dallas has more restaurants per capita than New York City. These restaurants, in contrast to Austin’s, are more gourmet affairs than college-friendly, although there’s alw...

Food:El Paso may or may not be the capital of Texas Mexican food, but the restaurants do serve up a lot of Tex-Mex, and not just the staples. Many restaurants serve unique dishes and some change their menu constantly. Barbecue is also a staple of El Paso cuisine. Both styles of restaurants tend to b...

Food:In contrast to Dallas’s more affluent, gourmet fare, Fort Worth is proud to be a cowtown and proud to serve meat and lots of it. Burgers, barbeque, and steak are staples, if sometimes with unusual variations (you can, for example, find ostrich burgers). The sides are sometimes especially good, ...

Food:Seafood and traditional American cuisine are the big food “genres” here, with seafood being the dominant one by a long stretch. Like much of Texan coastal food, the seafood has a distinctly Cajun flavor.Music:Galveston doesn’t have much of a live music scene, but it does have one. Much of the l...