Which is preferable Houston or Dallas for a three day stopover?

Question

I have two nights three days at then end of a US holiday and flight options I have to choose from are Houston or Dallas, neither of which I have visited before.

Answer 1

I'm from Houston, and I'm requred by local ordinance to never say anything nice about Dallas, so I won't.

First Dallas isn't really Texas. Oh they wear cowboy hats and say ya'll and some of their women still have hair big enough to sink the Titanic, but Dallas spends most of its time trying very hard to deny that it is in Texas and act like it is one of them oh So "Sohphisticated" towns up there in Yankeeland. If you want to be able to tell the folks at home you saw TEXAS (and not Texas-lite) you have to come to Houston. We are TEXAS and don't care who knows it.

I disagree that Dallas has better shopping. The Galleria here in Houston is the ORIGINAL Galleria, and is the largest mall in Texas and the 7th largest in the US. I'm sorry but when push comes to shove HOUSTON is the center of the Global Oil Gas and Energy industry, and all those trophy wives need someplace to shop.... and shop they do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Galleria

Also Houston has better weather. DFW is just sitting out there in the middle of the lonesome Prarie and can get nasty windstorms or thunderstorms that shut down the airport. That hardly ever happens in Houston.

Houston has NASA... well sort of. Up until November 1992 you could actually go through the Manned Spaceflight Center here and take a tour. Then they built Space Center Houston... you can still take a bus tour through parts of the JSC (Johnson Spacefilght Center) and you can see the original mission controll (its a museum now) and the new MSC. Space Center Houston has some nice IMAX movies and some kid stuff and a couple of cool displays,. It is a lot more tourist friendly but it isn't quite the same. (In the old days you could eat in the Nasa cafeteria with all the NASA folks. ) http://www.spacecenter.org/

Houston has some incredible resturants as well. The fajita was "invented" here at a place called Ninfas. People had been serving them at home for generations, but it was Mama Ninfa that first put them on a resturant menu, and the rest is history.

IF you like history we have some of that too.... and unlike Dallas OUR historical moments don't involve the murder of a beloved President. We have the USS Texas moored down at the San Jacinto Battlefield. http://www.usstexasbb35.com/
San Jacinto is worth seeing too. http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/spdest/findadest/parks/san_jacinto_battleground/

You don't say when you will be here. If you time it right, the Houston Museum of Fine arts has a great exhibition of French Impressionists opeing soon. http://www.mfah.org/main.asp?target=home (The NY Metropolitian Museum of Fine Art is doing a remodel and we snagged their paintings while the construction is going on.) We also have a great science museum http://www.hmns.org/

Also coming up is a REAL event that you MUST see, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo... the LARGEST RODEO ON THE PLANET. That will be something to tell the folks at home about.
http://www.rodeohouston.com/

One word of warning. The night before the rodeo opens there is a barbeque competion that you can smell for miles (OOOHH it is good, everyone inside the loop gets hungry just from the smell.) This has become an event that, while still family friendly, is a place where the young single professonals go to meet each other. Somewhere along the line the tradition has developed that if you see someone cute you go up to them and slap a sticker on the behind of their jeans. (Everyone wears boots and jeans to the rodeo... I think it's the law.) So, if you go don't be suprised if someone does that to you.

Also coming up is Mardi Gras Galveston. Galveston's Mardi Gras is like New Orleans, only without all the scum, crime, drunken tourists peeing in the street, and leftover hurricane devistation.
http://www.mardigrasgalveston.com/ Think of it as what New Orleans could be, if only they had a government that was both honest and not stupider than an unusually dim loaf of whole wheat bread.

Next, on the family friendly note, if you are here on a Sunday you must check out one of the many mega-churches. Lakewood is the largest and easiest to get too, but there are a lot of good ones here. I don't go to Lakewood, but you can't undersand (or really say you have been to ) Texas untill you have gone to Church at least once with 17,000 other people.

http://www.lakewood.cc/site/PageServer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakewood_Church

Now a couple of words of caution. Houston has good neighborhoods, and bad neighborhoods, and they can often be right next door to each other. We are most preturbed by the fact that our bad neighborhoods got significantly worse when all the Katrina refugees from New Orleans came in. (Local crime rate was up 30% after they showed up, and they do NOT have a good reputation locally.) If you don't know any locals check with the folks at your hotel about where not to drive at night, etc.

Secondly, while neither Dallas nor Houston is big on public transportation (we Texans view public transport as a Yankee plot to take away our pick up trucks) Dallas probably has better public transport than Houston. You are going to have to rent a car in either town unless you want to spend all you time in your hotel watching cable.

If you need anything else, e-mail me.

Answer 2

I'd say Houston, but I have a slight bias. I only go to Dallas to visit friends and attend State Fair. Houston is far friendlier, has a much nicer climate this time of the year (January/February), and frankly, more to do. Of course, Dallas does have Fort Worth 40 miles to the west :)

Answer 3

I would vote for Houston. The weather will be warmer and thus less of a problem for travel concerns. Dallas can get the occasional winter storm.

Also, Houston is located near the Gulf, so at least you will have some water to see!

Answer 4

Dallas is less expensive than Houston.....The shuttle bus from the airport can take you to any hotel in downtown and you can use it as a city tour ride....Shopping is better in Dallas as well...great prices and outlets right inside the mall....You can see Cowboys walking on the street in both cities!

Answer 5

~~ As much as I love to be near Galveston (Huston is only fifty miles away), I would definitely choose Dallas.

~~ Dallas is far nicer, (the word shiny comes to mind when I think of Dallas) city.
It is also a cleaner city and you can check out the (infamous) rassy Knoll!

~~ Have a quick look at their Convention & Visitors Bureau website before you go.
Familiarise yourself with what you'd like to see when you arrive:
http://www.dallascvb.com/visitors/

Answer 6

if you ask me, which you didnt, i'd say niether. think about it.
if you go to Dallas there's every oppotunity that you'll get shot like mr J F the K and if you say ok i'll go to houston instead theres an equel chance that you'll get caught up in all the hype and all the excitement, ok same thing i know, of the next shuttle lift off.