Texas is home to some of the USA’s most treasured attractions and natural wonders. But you don’t have to follow what every other tourist is doing to truly experience the magic on offer. Below, we share some of Texas’ most exclusive travel activities to elevate your adventure.

7. Wake Up in Luxury at ARRIVE East Austin 

You need a great night’s sleep with all these adventures, right? We recommend choosing ARRIVE East Austin as your base for the most luxurious stay. 

Located in one of Austin’s trendiest areas, you’re just a few steps from the most buzzing bars and talked-about eateries. Moreover, the hotel offers a boho style that’s both modern and effortlessly timeless. Enjoy complimentary beer or wine on check-in and take your pick from any of the 83 luxuriously appointed guest rooms. 

6. Space Center Houston NASA VIP Tours

Imagine if you could witness fragments of a 4.5 billion-year-old asteroid or meet a real-life astronaut without the hassle of jostling with hundreds of tourists. Well, you can. With Space Center Houston NASA’s VIP tours, you can enjoy all the exhibits and behind-the-scenes access to astronaut training facilities in groups of no more than ten people. 

In the morning tour, you’ll tour the Crew Systems Laboratory, Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory, Apollo Mission Control Center, and the all-important ISS Mission Control. If you find yourself on the afternoon tour, you’ll head to the Jake Garn Simulation and Training Facility, Astronaut Training Facility, and the Neutral Buoyancy Lab. These locations showcase the high-tech ways astronauts prepare for their physically demanding missions into outer space. 

NASA VIP Tours take place on weekdays. Guests must be 14 years old or older to participate. Tickets start at $199.95 per person per tour. 

5. See Texas From Above With a Private Hot Air Balloon Adventure

Between San Antonio and Austin, in the heart of Hill Country, Air Carriage Over Texas has been delighting passengers for over a decade. For the ultimate luxury travel experience in Texas, level up your Hot Air Balloon experience by booking an exclusive private ride. 

Arrive just before sunrise in the beautiful city of San Marcos, load into a chase vehicle, and travel to one of a few different launch sites, depending on ideal wind conditions.

As the sun rises over the Texas Hill Country, cruise over the river and marvel at the breathtaking views guided by wherever the wind takes you. You’ve got the whole balloon to yourself, so think of it as a private tour of the Lone Star State with your expert guide. 

Tickets start at $2,500 per party. You can look forward to a 45-minute scenic sunrise flight with a complimentary champagne toast, a private and personalized tour, and a free ride back to your vehicle. 

4. Hire a Limousine to Travel Texas in Style 

If you’re celebrating a special occasion or want to get around the state in style, look no further than Texas Coast Limo. With a fleet that includes a Large Party Bus, Stretch Hummer Limo, and the more understated Black Lincoln Stretch Limo, ensure you’re the envy of all passersby as you toast another day of exclusive exploration wherever you are in Texas. 

3. Charter a Private Jet For a Day of Texas Sightseeing

At almost 700,000 square kilometers, Texas can be an overwhelmingly large place to get around. Driving from San Antonio to Dallas can take over four hours, but with premium air charter services, you could complete it in a little over an hour. 

Instead of spreading out your Texas trip over four or five days and spending much of that time driving, you can hire a private jet and enjoy the same excitement in one or two. Spend the morning at Space Center Houston NASA before jetting to Austin for lunch and walking around McKinney Falls State Park. Hop back in your private jet to witness sunset at The Alamo before wrapping up your day in Houston with a ballgame at Minute Maid Park.

Traveling by private jet maximizes comfort and security, with your dedicated team caring for all your needs. Last-minute change of plans? No problem. With a premium air charter service, you set the schedule.

2. Watch the Houston Astros in the Phillips66 Diamond Club

Baseball is one of the great all-American pastimes, and the Houston Astros are undoubtedly the best team in Texas. Seeing the Astros is almost a rite of passage, so this one should be at the top of your Texas bucket list. 

The Phillips66 Diamond Club offers the finest personal entertainment with a “front row seat” that puts them closer to the batter than even the pitcher or the 30-foot projection screen in the dining room. Enjoy a pre-game dining experience with menus inspired by Houston celebrity chef Dominic Soucie and a guaranteed seat on one of the first nine rows behind the home plate. 

Getting seats here isn’t easy, with tickets in the Diamond Club often going for between $500-$1,000 per game, but if you’re looking for exclusive Texas experiences, they don’t get much more exclusive than this. 

1. Embark on a San Antonio Day Trip With Alamo and Boat Cruise

Few things are more exclusive than sipping champagne on a river cruise in the Texan sunshine, so why not enjoy a full-day trip that includes a 15-mile boat cruise along the San Antonio River? This 7-hour tour from Austin consists of a visit to the Alamo, Riverwalk, and the Tower of Americas observation. Learn about the region’s complex and colorful history from experienced tour guides with encyclopedic knowledge of one of the nation’s largest states. 

After the drive from Austin to San Antonio, with pitstops at all the famous landmarks along the way, you’ll meander down the winding river, passing the first neighborhood, La Villita, the Old Mill Crossing, and Selena’s Bridge. 

Tickets start at $254 per person for this full-day experience. 

Exclusivity Awaits 

With so much to do and so little time, treat yourself to any of the above luxury experiences to save time, gain insight, and, most importantly, travel in style. 

Looking for more of the best travel experiences? Check these out!

Featured photo via Torsten Asmus on iStock

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This story about Austin Community College was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

LOCKHART, Texas — Sometime last year, Alfonso Sifuentes was on a bus tour as part of a chamber of commerce’s efforts to map out the future of the bustling Central Texas region south of Austin where he lives and works.

There was chatter about why San Marcos, a suburb along one stretch of the Interstate 35 corridor, had little interest in a proposed expansion of Austin Community College into that area. Voters previously rejected the idea because of the property tax increase it would have required. As he swayed in his seat on the moving bus, Sifuentes, a businessman in the waste management industry who has long been involved in community development, thought about his hometown of Lockhart — like San Marcos just 30-some miles from Austin — and about the opportunities the college’s growing network of campuses could bring. Somewhere along the bus route, he made a declaration for all to hear.

“Well, if San Marcos doesn’t want it,” Sifuentes said, “Lockhart will take it.”

This November, the college is coming to voters in the Lockhart Independent School District with a proposition to begin paying into the Austin Community College taxing district. In exchange, residents would qualify for in-district tuition and trigger a long-term plan to build out college facilities in this rural stretch of Texas, which is positioning itself to tap into the economic boom flowing into the smaller communities nestled between Austin and San Antonio.

Community colleges have long played a crucial role in recovering economies. But in Lockhart, ACC’s potential expansion could serve as a case study of the role colleges can play in emerging economies as local leaders and community members eye the economic growth on the horizon.

That is, if they can convince enough of their neighbors to help pay for it.

At the edge of two massive metropolitan areas — Austin to the north and San Antonio to the south — Caldwell County is dotted by quaint communities offering small-town living. While the streets in other small rural communities are lined by shuttered storefronts or sit in the shadow of industry long gone, local leaders pitch this as a place “where undeniable opportunity meets authentic Texas community.”

Lockhart, the county seat, is revered as the barbecue capital of Texas with an established status as a day trip destination. About 30 miles southeast of Austin, its picturesque town square hosts a regular rotation of community events, including a summer concert series on the courthouse lawn and a series of pop-ups on the first Friday of the month featuring some mix of live music, receptions at a local art gallery, and sip and strolls and cheesecake specials at the antique store.

The county’s population of roughly 50,000 residents is dwarfed by the big cities and the nearby suburban communities that often rank among the fastest growing in the country. But what the county lacks in population it makes up for with a relatively low cost of living, space to make room for industry, housing and, potentially, Austin Community College.

The potential annexation is an example of how colleges are becoming more nimble and more responsive to both emerging economies and the needs of students, said Maria Cormier, a senior research associate for the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University. But Cormier argues such expansions must be intentionally designed with equity in mind to envision multiple pathways for students so that, for example, students from marginalized backgrounds aren’t limited only to certificate-level programming. (The Hechinger Report is an independent unit of Teachers College.)

“These sorts of questions become important when colleges are proposing these kinds of expansions: To what extent are they thinking about longer-term pathways for students?” Cormier said.

ACC already partners with Lockhart ISD on an early college high school that allows students to complete transferable college credit hours while earning a high school diploma, and proponents of annexation highlight the affordable higher education opportunities it would generally provide students in the Lockhart area. But their sales pitch emphasizes what it would mean to leverage ACC for the whole community. While the share of adults with a high school degree within Lockhart ISD’s territory is roughly aligned with the state, the share who have a bachelor’s degree — just 16.8 percent — falls to about half of the state rate.

“An effort like this can never be wrong if it always is for the right reasons,” said Nick Metzler, an information technology manager and consultant who serves as the president of the Greater Lockhart for ACC political action committee, which formed to pursue the college’s expansion.

First established in 1973, ACC has steadily grown its footprint in Central Texas through annexation. Though not commonly used, a provision of Texas education law grants a community college the ability to expand its taxing district by adding territory within its designated service area. Working within a service district roughly the size of Connecticut, ACC first expanded its reach in 1985 when voters in the territory covered by the Leander Independent School District, a northern suburb of Austin, agreed to be annexed.

In the years since, neighboring communities in the Manor, Del Valle and Round Rock school districts followed with large majority votes in favor of annexation. ACC’s expansion into Austin’s southern suburbs didn’t begin until 2010, when annexation passed in the Hays Consolidated Independent School District.

The collective initiative to bring ACC to Lockhart has been the topic of discussion for many years, but the current effort was formally triggered by a community-led petition that required locals to gather signatures from at least 5 percent of registered voters. Fanning out at youth sporting events, school functions and other community gatherings, PAC members met with neighbors who indicated their children would be the first in their families to go to college, if they could afford it. Others were adults excited by the prospect of trade programs and certifications they could pursue and the transformative change it could bring to their families as new industries move into Caldwell County.

“Those things would catch a lot of the individuals who couldn’t make it to four-year universities or couldn’t afford to go to four-year universities,” Metzler said. “That’s always been kind of where we as a community have kind of been lacking.”

Lockhart also has an incentive for partnering with ACC: A recent assessment commissioned by the city identified the need to partner with a postsecondary institution for job training if it wanted to meet its economic goals and compete in its target business sectors, namely large-scale auto and electronic manufacturing, food processing and tourism. It also identified the lack of skilled administrative workers along with computer and math specialists as a challenge to reaching those goals.

In the end, PAC members easily surpassed the threshold of the 744 signatures they were required to submit — they turned in 1,013.

On the ballot now is a proposal for homeowners to trade $232.54 a year on average — a rate of $.1013 per $100 in property value — for in-district services. That includes a steep discount for in-district tuition that comes out to $85 per credit hour compared with $286 for out-of-district residents, though high school graduates from Lockhart ISD would also qualify for free tuition under a recently adopted five-year pilot program going into effect this fall.

“We are very interested in providing access to high-quality, affordable education in our region because we think it’s a game changer for families,” Chris Cervini, ACC’s vice chancellor for community and public affairs, said in an interview. “We think it promotes affordability by providing folks a lifeline to a family-sustaining wage, so we are very bullish on our value proposition.”

The vote would also allow ACC to grow its tax base as it works to keep pace with its growing enrollment. When classes kicked off this fall, ACC was serving about 70,000 students across 11 campuses in the Central Texas region — an enrollment increase of 10 percent compared with a year earlier. The potential expansion comes as community colleges are adapting to a new state financing model based on student outcomes, including financial incentives for schools if students obtain workforce credentials in certain fields.

The college proposed a three-phase service plan that would begin with expanded offerings in the area, such as evening classes, and eventually work up to a permanent facility tailored to match workforce needs, including demand for certificate programs to “reskill and upskill” for various high-demand careers. Cervini, who has been a main liaison with the Lockhart community, previously said the college was considering whether it could quickly deploy its resources into the community through mobile training rigs for HVAC and welding.

Its timeline could be sped up now that the college has identified a historic building in the heart of downtown — the old Ford Lockhart Motor Company building — as its potential home. During a recent presentation to the Lockhart City Council, ACC Chancellor Russell Lowery-Hart told city leaders he appreciated that the site would represent the community’s history juxtaposed to “what we think the future looks like.”

But ACC leaders said the issue ultimately has to play out in the community. There’s been no apparent organized opposition to the vote in Lockhart, and ACC officials say they’ve been engaged with local leaders who have been supportive in helping inform voters about the annexation process. The proposal recently picked up the endorsement of Lockhart’s mayor, Lew White, who commended ACC leaders for their outreach to the community about their offerings.

“I think that’s what a lot of people have been asking for, and I think you’re really shaping your proposal for this fall election very nicely,” White said. “And I think it’s something that our community needs to get together and get behind and support.”

Even Lockhart ISD leaders frame the college’s pitch as an initiative with potential benefits extending well beyond the increased access it would offer students in the region.

Overseeing a record 6,850 students in a district covering about 300 square miles, Superintendent Mark Estrada said education is essential to cultivating communities where residents can not only actively participate in the sort of growth Caldwell County is experiencing but benefit from it as well.

“I think the real conversation and consideration is how would this benefit the educational attainment of the entire community, which currently is one of the lowest in Central Texas,” Estrada said. “The mid-career switches, people’s opportunity to have access to education to pursue a passion or career they’ve always been interested in — that’s a major consideration for the community. It’s a narrow look if we’re only looking at high school graduates.”

Still, Caldwell County remains a conservative area in a conservative state where fighting property tax increases has become a favorite political calling card. Much of that debate has centered on funding for public schools, with the fight over school finance often falling to the question of whether older Texans, who are mostly white and less likely to have children enrolled in public schools, are willing to pay for the future of younger Texans, who are mostly Latino. Roughly 4 out of every 5 students enrolled in Lockhart ISD are Latinos.

Voters in the area have shown at least some unwillingness to foot the bill for education-related expansions. In 2019, they rejected a $92.4 million bond proposed to address the significant growth in student enrollment Lockhart ISD had seen in the prior decade. The bond package would have gone toward making more room for more students through the addition of a two-story wing to the local high school, two new school buildings and renovations throughout the district. It also would have backed improvements to the district’s workforce preparation efforts, including a new agricultural science facility and additions to the district’s career technology center to allow more students to participate in auto repair classes and hospitality training. Opponents of the measure, 1,632 voters, won with 55 percent of the vote compared with 1,340 who voted in favor.

This time around, proponents of annexation are hoping the eagerness they’ve felt in the community from those who signed onto the original petition — and those who come to see the broader benefits it could bring to the community — will translate to votes.

In recounting the interest they fielded in the early days of their efforts collecting signatures, PAC members described one canvas of a local gym in a portion of the county that’s seeing some of the biggest growth but trails in terms of income. Some of the gym-goers were enthusiastic about the possibility of pursuing technical certifications but realized they weren’t registered to vote, a requirement of the signature collection process.

They went out and got on the voter rolls. Then, they came back to put their names on the petition.

Contact the editor of this story, Nirvi Shah, at 212-678-3445 or shah@hechingerreport.org.

After earning her degree in architecture, Lyn Estabrook began her professional journey at an architecture firm in Austin, where she played a role in designing government buildings, including the original airport concessions. Over the next decade, she honed her skills at various architecture firms before making a significant shift to the public sector.

In 2008, Lyn joined the City of Austin’s Building Services as a project manager. Her career continued to evolve as she transitioned to the Parks Department, managing capital improvement projects. Her commitment and hard work caught the attention of others, leading to a special assignment in the Office of Sustainability. “When you work hard and do good work, people notice,” Lyn says, emphasizing the importance of dedication in her field.

Most recently, she was promoted to Deputy Chief of Planning and Development in the Department of Aviation, showcasing her ambition and leadership. Lyn is not only passionate about architecture but also about helping her team grow. She finds joy in those “light bulb” moments when a team member discovers a new idea or solution. “I love being able to see a problem and help solve it,” she explains.

At first glance, airports may seem like public utilities, but many are structured to be financially self-sustaining. “We are a city-owned airport, but we make all of the money that we need on campus,” Lyn explains. This means that, unlike other city services, the airport doesn’t receive taxpayer funding. Instead, they rely on the revenue generated from the businesses operating within the airport—chief among them, the airlines.

Lyn’s role in airport planning is all about looking ahead—not just a year or two, but decades into the future. With passenger numbers and flight traffic growing rapidly, Lyn and her team must think in long-term horizons to ensure the airport can meet future demand. “The planning team does a lot of future thinking,” she explains. “They have to look at trends, they have to look at what other airports are doing, and they have to look historically backward to understand where we’ve been.”

One of the biggest adjustments Lyn has had to navigate is the growth in both the size of the planes and the number of flights. The terminal, originally designed for smaller planes, now hosts much larger aircraft flying at full capacity. “The original design was for planes that had 135 people on them, with only 60% of the seats filled,” Lyn says. “But now we’re pushing larger planes, and they’re coming in with 190 people and load factors as high as 100%.”

For Lyn, building an airport is not just about concrete, gates, and terminals. It’s about turning a long-term vision into a reality that will serve millions of passengers for generations to come. As someone who oversees the planning and development of a major airport, Lyn’s work revolves around balancing intricate details with the big picture. At the heart of it all is the master plan, a document that guides the airport’s future expansion.

“All airports have to do what’s called a master plan. It’s an FAA-required master plan,” Lyn explains. But unlike neighborhood planning, an airport master plan is a highly technical document that sets the framework for everything from taxiways to terminals. “It’s more like a use plan,” she adds. “It lays out a concept for what we could do, not exactly how we’ll do it.”

The master plan is a starting point—a vision for what the airport could become. However, translating that vision into a functional airport involves a complex evolution of design, engineering, and construction. “What we’re building today is an evolution from that,” Lyn says. Her team moves from the high-level concept of the master plan to detailed construction layouts that take into account building codes, geotechnical reports, and the latest FAA guidelines. “The reality takes the technical requirements and moves them into a design and engineering framework so you can exactly know where the building is going.”

Lyn’s work doesn’t stop at just envisioning the future; she leads her team through every phase of the project, from planning and design to the actual build. “You go through what we call 30, 60, 90,” she explains. At each design milestone—30%, 60%, 90%—the team reassesses the plans, refining them until they’re ready to be built. “At each stage, you review it and get closer to the final result.”

One of Lyn’s key strategies for keeping projects on track and on budget is alternative delivery, which brings contractors into the process early to collaborate with designers. “The contractor is on-site within 45 days of the designer,” she says. “They collaborate on how to build it, faster and more efficiently.” This method not only speeds up the process, but also ensures that quality and practicality are at the forefront.

Lyn’s career in airport planning and development has been a journey of balancing vision with practical execution, and nowhere is this balance more evident than in the intricate world of procurement. At the helm of projects that shape the future of the airport, Lyn plays a crucial role in ensuring that the right teams are selected to bring these massive undertakings to life.

For Lyn, procurement isn’t just about signing contracts; it’s a complex process that can take anywhere from six to nine months. “Procurement is the process of finding and selecting someone to do something,” she explains. “In our case, it’s a design team, a construction team, or both.”

What makes airport procurement unique is the collaboration with the city’s purchasing office. This department sets the standards and provides templates, ensuring that everything follows specific regulations. “You’ve got to say what you want, what kind of skills you want, and how you’re going to score it,” Lyn says. This meticulous attention to detail ensures that only the most qualified teams are considered.

Lyn likens the process to a job interview. The teams vying for a project submit extensive documents, sometimes over 100 pages long, detailing everything from organization charts to their approach to working with partners. Once these submissions are reviewed by a panel, which Lyn makes sure is diverse in expertise, background, and experience, the best teams are selected. “It’s a different panel every time,” she notes. “The project manager will be there through the process, but they don’t always score.”

Ultimately, once a team is chosen, it still takes months of negotiation before the final agreements are signed and work can begin. For Lyn, every decision, from selecting the design team to approving construction methods, is part of her long-term vision for the airport. Her leadership ensures that each project is not only well-executed but also reflects the future of the airport she’s helping to build.

“Airports are fun because they’re dynamic. If you’re okay with things changing and evolving, it’s fun because you never know in the day-to-day what you’re going to be doing,” Lyn says with enthusiasm. That energy and curiosity are what have kept her engaged throughout her career. Lyn loves how the aviation industry is its own little world, with its own set of challenges and innovations. “We’re like a little city,” she explains, “and we’re very self-sustaining.”

Today, she leads with the same vigor she had when she first started. Her message to new employees is simple: “You can do anything here. If you decide, ‘I’m tired of being an admin, I want to go be a finance person,’ go for it!” For Lyn, the aviation industry isn’t just a job—it’s a career full of opportunities to grow, evolve, and thrive.