Swimming holes
The Hill Country's best feature. Limestone aquifers push cold, clear water to the surface across the region, and the resulting swimming holes are genuinely world-class. Almost all of the good ones now require advance reservations in season, and they sell out.
West of Dripping Springs
Hamilton Pool Preserve
A collapsed grotto with a fifty-foot waterfall dropping into a jade-green pool. The most photographed swimming hole in Texas. Timed reservations required, and swimming only permitted when bacteria levels allow — but the view alone is worth the trip.
Austin
Barton Springs Pool
Three acres of spring-fed pool in the middle of the city, sixty-eight degrees year round. Not technically the Hill Country, but the same aquifer and the best introduction to it.
Wimberley
Blue Hole Regional Park
Cypress trees, rope swings, and cold clear water. Reservations required in summer. The loveliest of the family swimming holes.
Wimberley
Jacob's Well Natural Area
A deep artesian spring dropping into a cave system. Swimming is reservation-only and strictly managed; the short walk is worth it regardless.
Spicewood
Krause Springs
A privately owned spring-fed pool with a butterfly garden and camping. Less regulated than the county and state sites and a reliable backup.
Wimberley to Canyon Lake
The Devil's Backbone and the Blanco River
River access points and one of the best short drives in the region along Ranch Road 32.
State parks and landscape
North of Fredericksburg
Enchanted Rock State Natural Area
A vast pink granite dome rising several hundred feet from the surrounding country. The summit hike is under a mile each way and steep, and the view runs for miles. Entry reservations required and they sell out. One of the best dark-sky sites in central Texas.
Near Johnson City
Pedernales Falls State Park
Layered limestone shelves that the river runs across in stepped falls, plus substantial hiking and swimming downstream.
Vanderpool, west
Lost Maples State Natural Area
A stand of bigtooth maples that turn genuinely red in November — a rarity in Texas. Absolutely packed in fall foliage season; go on a weekday.
Concan, on the Frio
Garner State Park
A Texas institution — tubing on the Frio River, cypress trees, and a summer dance at the pavilion that has been running since the thirties.
Bend, northwest
Colorado Bend State Park
Gorman Falls, a seventy-foot travertine waterfall, plus caves and river access. Remote and worth the drive.
South of Fredericksburg
Old Tunnel State Park
The smallest state park in Texas, built around an abandoned rail tunnel that now houses millions of Mexican free-tailed bats. The dusk emergence from May through October is remarkable.
Wine
The Texas Hill Country AVA covers around nine million acres and contains the highest concentration of tasting rooms in the state. The 290 corridor between Johnson City and Fredericksburg is the best wine per mile; the Dripping Springs and Driftwood cluster is the closest to Austin. We have a whole section of this guide on it.
Austin Wine Car
Wine days, driven for you
Three Hill Country wineries, door-to-door from Austin. Fredericksburg or Dripping Springs, with an optional BBQ stop.
Not ready to book?
BBQ, beer and spirits
- The Salt Lick, Driftwood — open pits, communal tables, family-style plates, bring your own beer.
- Jester King, near Dripping Springs — farmhouse ales, wood-fired pizza, goats, and a huge ranch property.
- Garrison Brothers, Hye — Texas bourbon made on a beautiful ranch, with a genuinely good tour.
- Desert Door, Driftwood — Texas sotol, distilled from a wild desert plant.
- Treaty Oak, Dripping Springs — whiskey and gin on a ranch with a restaurant and a lawn.
- Vista Brewing, Driftwood — a real kitchen and the best lawn in the area.
- The wider Central Texas BBQ belt — Lockhart, Taylor, and Llano are each within reach and each worth a dedicated trip.
Small towns worth the detour
90 min from Austin
Fredericksburg
German settlement history, Main Street shopping, peaches, and the center of Texas wine country.
50 min
Wimberley
A creek-side village with an artsy square and Market Days on the first Saturday of the month, March through December.
75 min
Gruene
A preserved nineteenth-century district in New Braunfels with Gruene Hall, the oldest continually operating dancehall in Texas.
90–110 min
Comfort and Boerne
Two of the prettiest historic downtowns in Texas, on the southwestern edge of the region.
95 min
Luckenbach
A general store, a dancehall, and a picking circle under the oaks. Population three, famously.
60–80 min
Marble Falls and Burnet
The Highland Lakes towns, with lake access, Longhorn Cavern, and a scenic railroad.
60 min
Johnson City
The gateway to the 290 wine corridor, with the LBJ Ranch nearby and a downtown that has quietly gotten good.
Music and dancehalls
The Hill Country's dancehalls are a genuine cultural inheritance — built by German and Czech settlement societies in the nineteenth century and, in a number of cases, still operating. Gruene Hall is the oldest continually operating one in Texas. Luckenbach's is smaller and more informal. Several wineries and breweries run live music on weekends, and Austin is forty minutes away when you want more.
Wildflowers, in season
For roughly three weeks in April, the Hill Country roadsides turn blue with bluebonnets, followed by Indian paintbrush and coreopsis. It is the single best time of year to be out here and the busiest.
- The Willow City Loop, northeast of Fredericksburg — thirteen miles of ranch road and the best-known wildflower drive in Texas. Private land on both sides; stay in the car or on the shoulder.
- Ranch Road 1323 between Johnson City and Willow City.
- Wildseed Farms on 290 — a working wildflower seed farm with fields you can walk.
- The stretch of TX-71 and RR-2323 near Spicewood.
- Almost any farm-to-market road in the region during the second and third weeks of April.
History and museums
- The National Museum of the Pacific War, Fredericksburg — genuinely excellent, and much bigger than the town suggests.
- The LBJ Ranch and Boyhood Home, Stonewall and Johnson City — National Park Service sites covering the Texas White House.
- The Pioneer Museum, Fredericksburg — the German settlement story in restored buildings.
- Longhorn Cavern State Park, Burnet — a river-carved cave with a Civilian Conservation Corps history.
- The Alamo and the San Antonio missions — the southern end of a Hill Country trip, and a UNESCO World Heritage site.
When to go
| Season | What it is good for |
|---|---|
| March–May | Wildflowers, mild weather, the best of everything. Busiest. |
| June–August | Swimming holes, river tubing, peaches. Very hot inland. |
| September–October | Harvest, cooler air, Texas Wine Month, thinner crowds. |
| November | Lost Maples foliage, Christmas lights starting, cool and clear. |
| December–February | Quiet, cheap, and better than its reputation. Bare vines and empty trails. |