What To Do in Houston: The Perfect One-Day Itinerary

The first thing I didn’t realize about Houston is that it’s not just another city (I know that sounded cheesy, let me explain). Houston is enormous. It’s the fourth most populated city in North America. Little did I know that Houston itself is comprised of not only the metropolitan region of the city, but of the entire suburban area surrounding the city as well. So from here you can probably guess from here that the range of barbecue joints is almost as wide as the range of Italian restaurants in New Jersey. (Check out this post for my recommendation on the best pizzeria in Jersey, by the way).

It’s no secret that the priority for every first-timer in town should be barbecue.

My personal recommendation is to head to the outskirts of the city, to a place called Corkscrew BBQ. After hours (okay, minutes) of intensive research and restaurant comparisons, I found that Corkscrew ranked in Texas Monthly’s top ten best BBQ spots in the state. I’m not much for kitschy “best restaurant” lists, but when you have half a day in Houston and you’re trying to find the best barbecue, there’s no time to waste.

We sped on over to the little town of Spring, where we found a trailer covered in “Corkscrew” memorabilia and Texas license plates. We’d found the spot. Complete with a picnic area and cornhole games, the outside tables comprise the perfect area to relax and enjoy your pillagings. My lunch of choice was the loaded potato topped with brisket, coleslaw, a sprinkle of shredded cheese, and the house seasonings.

Now, I come from a Jewish family where I grew up with my mom making brisket on a nearly weekly basis. I hope she never sees this, but this brisket was life-changing. Even the lean brisket juicy beyond belief. Not only was it almost impossibly moist, it was so tender that you could cut it with a plastic knife (which, I did). If I could eat one meal for the rest of my life, this would probably be it.

Completely satiated, we spent the next hour touring the town of Spring and perusing the brightly colored shops just across the street from Corkscrew. After debating purchasing a pair of cowboy boots for the most part of that hour and then wisely deciding against it, we decided to head downtown for our last few hours.

Not only is downtown Houston home to every variety of food and drink that you could possibly crave (and a surprisingly large Asian cuisine scene), it possesses an entire museum district, from fine art establishments to natural science observatories.

Let’s start off on a less cultural note first. Texas’ oldest craft brewery, Saint Arnold’s, was the first stop on the list, where the beer hall is open for free tours. My suggestion would be to do the tasting, where $10 gets you four tokens for 8 oz pours and you get to keep the logo glass. As Saint Arnold’s is just north of downtown Houston, our next stop was obviously to continue our brewery tour into the next region of the city. Try the French toast beer at 8th Wonder Brewery, if more for the experience than the actual taste, and hit up the on-site food truck for some sustenance before you head out of the city onto your next destination.

If you have time, which I didn’t, I would recommend visiting the Space Center, aka NASA headquarters. The first word spoken on the moon was “Houston,” so it’s fitting that the city is home to the center of interstellar science. I know other people might not find astronomy as interesting, but I love visiting observatories and I think you can’t get any more legit than NASA’s own astronaut training and flight control complex.

There are also a variety of museums to visit in the downtown area if you want to add a little culture to your barbecue/brewery tour. You can click here to check out the official Houston Museum District website, which organizes the museums by geographical zones, and has way more information on the museums than I do.

Whether you’re looking to tuck into some of the country’s best brisket or ogle a masterpiece in a museum, Houston has it all. So get ready to explore the history of space travel, kayak a scenic waterway, dig into some ribs, and finish it off with a show in one of the city’s great downtown theaters.