Hill Country Travel Blog
HARPER, TEXAS: HEADWATERS OF THE HILL COUNTRY
At the headwaters of the Pedernales River in western Gillespie County, you’ll find the picturesque Hill Country town of Harper. Like many of its fellow Hill Country towns, it’s a ranching community with deep roots that lead back to its original settlers; indeed, many of its current residents (with a current population of about 1,200) claim those settlers as family.
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Celebrating Songwriters: The Kerrville Folk Festival
Every spring, folk songwriters and those who love the music they create gather at Quiet Valley Ranch just south of Kerrville for the Kerrville Folk Festival, an 18-day celebration of the storytellers in this unique musical genre. In its fifty-plus-year history, the festival has featured headliners and newcomers alike, and it’s become a gathering with a national reputation...so much so that the festival’s population rivals that of Kerrville itself!
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Hit the Old Spanish Trail!
To hit this trail, you don’t need to saddle up or even lace your hiking boots. We’re talking about the Old Spanish Trail (OST) restaurant in Bandera, an honored local tradition for over 100 years!
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Comfort Texas Scarecrow Invasion
Every October, the townspeople and business owners in Comfort are invited, and encouraged, to take part in their annual Scarecrow Invasion..and they do so in some of the most creative ways imaginable. It’s a fun tradition that enhances community spirit, and one that has grown over the years to inspire smiles all over the Hill Country. One can easily imagine the hard work and inspiration that goes into the displays you’ll see everywhere in town...and we mean EVERYWHERE.
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Tuff, Texas
There are jokes about small towns in the Hill Country (and, in our travels, we’ve heard them in a lot of other places in the US, too). You’ve probably heard some of them: blink and you miss it; it’s just a wide spot in the road; they roll up the sidewalks at 8 o’clock every night; Sally Jones had twins and doubled the town’s population. It’s perhaps because of these jokes that we’ve found the smaller the town, the more proud people are to claim being from them. We’ll revisit that point in a minute.
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Hill Country Winter Weather: No Joke!
Snowbirds come here to enjoy the mild winters, and they start showing up the minute flakes start to fly where they live. They open up Facebook and laugh at their friends in Chicago or Minneapolis who are shoveling piles of the white stuff. “Thank goodness we don’t have that,” they assure themselves, wearing shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops in November. However….
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Meet the Twisted Sisters!
The term “Twisted Sisters” refers to the three state highways that make up the majority of a big, sweeping loop that’s nearly 200 miles: TX 335, TX 336, and TX 337. We’re going to trace out the route of the Twisted Sisters by starting at Bandera, which is a traditional starting point for many riders. We’ll trace it out in a clockwise direction. This is for ease of description on our part; you can start anywhere on the route and take in as much or as little as you’d like!
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CAMP WOOD, TEXAS: A LONG HISTORY, A LATE START
Located in western Real County, and on the western edge of the Texas Hill Country, is the small town of Camp Wood, Texas. One of the most fascinating aspects of this town’s history is that it can be traced back over a period of hundreds of years, but as an official town it’s not even a full century old! Let’s take a look at the people and events that made Camp Wood what it is today.
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