Houston is the fourth largest city in the United States, the most ethnically diverse large city in the country, and the place the word Houston was the first spoken from the surface of the Moon. It has no zoning code, which means it sprawls in every direction and puts a taqueria next to an oil company tower, and it has four major museums you can walk between, three of them free.
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What Is Here
SPACE CENTER HOUSTON IS THE HERO IMAGE AND THE REAL THING IS THE TRAM TOUR, NOT THE BUILDING. The visitor centre holds flown hardware, including the Apollo engine in the photograph and a Saturn V lying on its side at the adjacent Rocket Park, which is one of only three left. THE PART TO BOOK IS THE TRAM TOUR INTO JOHNSON SPACE CENTER ITSELF, which reaches HISTORIC MISSION CONTROL, the restored room from which Apollo 11 was flown, and sometimes the astronaut training facility where current hardware is tested. IT IS A WORKING NASA SITE, so the tram routes and what they can reach CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE for operational reasons, and tour capacity is limited. Book timed tickets and the tram in advance, allow four to five hours, and note it is about twenty five miles south east of downtown with no useful transit, so it is a car or a rideshare day.
THE MUSEUM DISTRICT IS THE BEST-VALUE HALF DAY IN TEXAS AND MOST OF IT IS FREE. THE MENIL COLLECTION is free, always, a Renzo Piano building holding one of the great private collections given to the public, and on its campus the ROTHKO CHAPEL, fourteen Rothko paintings in an octagonal room built to be sat in, is one of the quietest spaces in America. THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON is enormous and free on Thursdays. The HOUSTON MUSEUM OF NATURAL SCIENCE charges and its paleontology hall is worth it. Add the free CY TWOMBLY GALLERY and the Byzantine Fresco Chapel on the Menil campus.
BUFFALO BAYOU PARK IS WHERE THE CITY WALKS, a long green corridor west of downtown with paths, the Waugh Bridge bat colony, which empties at dusk from March to October and is genuinely worth standing for, and the Cistern, a decommissioned 1926 drinking water reservoir with 221 columns, toured in the near dark.
THE SECOND AND THIRD IMAGES ARE THE PART PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT HOUSTON, which is that its centre is walkable at all. Downtown has a METRORail line along Main Street, seven miles of air-conditioned tunnels under the office towers, which are a serious summer asset and are open on weekday business hours only, and Discovery Green as its park.
THE FOOD IS THE REASON MANY PEOPLE COME BACK. Houston's diversity is not a slogan: the Mahatma Gandhi District on Hillcroft for South Asian food, Bellaire Boulevard's Asiatown for Vietnamese and Chinese, and the best Vietnamese food in the United States by common agreement, alongside Gulf seafood, Texas barbecue and Tex-Mex. Expect to drive to dinner.
ALSO WORTH THE TRIP: the Houston Zoo, Hermann Park, the enormous Galleria for shopping, and GALVESTON, an hour south east, for the beach, the Strand's Victorian district and the Gulf.
When to Go
LATE OCTOBER to APRIL. That is the answer and it is a wider window than Texans further north get. Warm days, tolerable humidity, everything open.
MARCH and APRIL are the best of it, with azaleas and bluebonnets, before the humidity closes in.
JUNE TO SEPTEMBER IS HOT AND WET AND THE HUMIDITY IS THE DIFFERENCE FROM THE REST OF TEXAS. Houston sits fifty miles from the Gulf and the air holds water, so a 95F afternoon feels like 105F or more and does not cool much at night. Afternoon thunderstorms are near-daily. Everything indoors is aggressively air conditioned.
HURRICANE SEASON RUNS 1 JUNE TO 30 NOVEMBER and peaks from August into September. Most trips in those months are unaffected; the point is to have a plan and travel insurance rather than to avoid the season outright.
Getting There
GEORGE BUSH INTERCONTINENTAL, IAH, is the main airport, about twenty miles north, with the full international network. WILLIAM P HOBBY, HOU, is closer to downtown to the south east and handles a lot of domestic and some Latin American flights. Both have METRO bus links to downtown and both are commonly done by rideshare.
Amtrak's Sunset Limited calls three times a week, which is a curiosity rather than a transport option.
YOU WILL WANT A CAR IN HOUSTON AND THAT IS THE HONEST ANSWER. The city covers more than six hundred square miles, METRORail is three lines serving downtown, the Museum District and the Medical Center, and that corridor alone is genuinely good; everything else, including Space Center Houston, Asiatown and most of the food, is a drive. If you stay downtown or in Midtown and intend to see only the museums and the rail corridor, you can skip the car and use rideshare for the rest.
Is Houston Safe for Women?
The FCDO publishes no advised-against areas anywhere in the United States and no country-level warning. Its guidance concentrates on the practical differences a British visitor meets: entry requirements and ESTA, the cost of healthcare without insurance, extreme weather including hurricanes on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts between June and November, and wildfire and heat risk in the west and south-west.
Houston's violent crime rate is above the American average and, as in every large American city, it is concentrated in particular residential areas rather than spread across the map. The districts a visitor uses are comfortable: the Museum District, Montrose, Rice Village, the Heights, Midtown and the Medical Center are all ordinary places to walk by day, and downtown is busy on weekdays and quieter at the weekend when the offices empty. Property crime, specifically CAR BREAK-INS, is the thing most likely to touch a visitor: leave nothing visible in a parked car anywhere, including a museum car park in daylight.
FLOODING IS THE DEFINING HAZARD OF THIS CITY AND NO TRAVEL ADVISORY WILL TELL YOU SO. Houston is flat, built over bayous and largely paved, and it floods badly and repeatedly: Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, and HURRICANE HARVEY IN AUGUST 2017, which dropped more than 60 inches of rain in places, the highest total ever recorded from a tropical cyclone in the United States, flooded tens of thousands of homes and killed dozens of people. It does not take a hurricane. AN ORDINARY SUMMER THUNDERSTORM CAN PUT A FOOT OF WATER ACROSS AN UNDERPASS IN TWENTY MINUTES. The operative rules: watch the forecast daily in summer, never drive into water on a road, treat underpasses and feeder roads as the dangerous places, and if you are told to shelter in place rather than evacuate, that is usually because driving into a flood is worse.
HURRICANE PREPARATION FOR A VISITOR IS SIMPLE AND WORTH DOING. Between June and November, know your hotel's plan, keep your phone charged and emergency alerts on, keep flexibility in your flights, and have travel insurance that covers weather disruption. An evacuation order is not advice.
THE HEAT AND HUMIDITY TOGETHER are more dangerous than dry heat because sweat does not evaporate, so the body cannot shed heat. Plan outdoor things for the morning, use the tunnels and the museums in the afternoon and drink constantly.
MOSQUITOES ARE A REAL NUISANCE AND A MINOR HEALTH MATTER from spring to autumn, particularly near the bayous at dusk.
HOUSTON TRAFFIC IS AMONG THE WORST IN THE COUNTRY and its freeway feeder road system confuses visitors. Allow far more driving time than a map suggests, and note that Texas is a permitless-carry state.
The Houston Packing List
Heat with humidity for half the year, heavy air conditioning indoors, sudden heavy rain, and a mild winter with occasional sharp fronts.
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is the one garment that answers Houston's actual problem, which is not the heat but the oscillation: humid 95F outside, a museum or a tunnel cooled to 70F, back out again, repeated all day. Fine merino carries sweat away in the humidity instead of holding it like cotton, and it stops the indoor chill without a second layer. From December to February, when a front can drop the afternoon thirty degrees, add a heavyweight merino base layer.
A long sun hoodie and a wide brim UPF sun hat, because the Gulf coast sun is strong and the humidity makes long sleeves more comfortable than bare arms.
A Marmot PreCip Eco rain jacket, which earns its place here more than in most American cities, and a large insulated water bottle.
Insect repellent for the bayou paths and the bat bridge at dusk.
Not linked and worth packing: SHOES THAT DRY, because you will walk through standing water at some point between May and October; A PHONE POWER BANK, which is the thing you want in a storm outage and which the registry does not carry an entry for; EMERGENCY ALERTS ENABLED, the most important item on this list in hurricane season; SUNSCREEN; AND A LIGHT CARDIGAN OR WRAP for restaurants and cinemas, which are cooled to a degree visitors find comical. The US is almost entirely card-based and tipping runs 18 to 20 per cent.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women in Houston
Emergency numbers: 911 for police, ambulance and fire, free from any phone including a locked mobile. Calls are answered locally and dispatchers will stay on the line. For non-urgent police matters many cities also run a 311 information line.
FLOODING IS THE DEFINING RISK IN THIS CITY AND IT DOES NOT REQUIRE A HURRICANE. Houston is flat, paved and built over bayous; HURRICANE HARVEY IN AUGUST 2017 dropped over 60 inches of rain, the highest tropical cyclone total ever recorded in the United States, and an ordinary summer thunderstorm can put a foot of water across an underpass in twenty minutes. NEVER DRIVE INTO WATER ON A ROAD, treat underpasses and freeway feeder roads as the dangerous places, and follow shelter-in-place instructions when they are given. HURRICANE SEASON IS 1 JUNE TO 30 NOVEMBER, peaking August to September: know your hotel's plan, keep emergency alerts on, keep flights flexible and carry weather-inclusive travel insurance, because an evacuation order is not advice. HEAT WITH HUMIDITY is more dangerous than dry heat because sweat cannot evaporate, so do outdoor things in the morning and use the DOWNTOWN TUNNELS, seven air-conditioned miles open on weekday business hours only. SPACE CENTER HOUSTON IS A WORKING NASA SITE: the tram tour to Historic Mission Control needs booking, capacity is limited, and routes change without notice for operational reasons. THE MENIL COLLECTION, THE ROTHKO CHAPEL AND THE CY TWOMBLY GALLERY ARE ALL FREE, and the Museum of Fine Arts is free on Thursdays. CAR BREAK-INS are the commonest crime against visitors: leave nothing visible in a parked car, including in daylight. Mosquitoes near the bayous from spring to autumn. Texas is a permitless-carry state.
US State Department travel advisory: there is none, and this is not an omission. The State Department issues travel advisories for other countries, not for the United States itself, so no US advisory for this destination exists to link. In its place, the Government of Canada advice for the United States gives an equivalent third-country assessment.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/usa, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits. The FCDO names no advised-against areas anywhere in the United States. The same advice also covers Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Main hospital: the Texas Medical Center south west of downtown is the largest medical complex in the world, and within it Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center and Ben Taub Hospital are the Level I trauma centres with 24 hour emergency departments. Dial 911 for police, ambulance or fire, and note that FLOOD AND HURRICANE INFORMATION comes from the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center rather than 911, which is for emergencies in progress. This is the single biggest practical difference for a visitor: there is no public health system, an emergency room visit without insurance can run into thousands of dollars, and an ambulance is billed separately and is not free. Comprehensive travel insurance with a high medical limit is not optional in the United States, and you should carry your policy number and the insurer's 24 hour number somewhere you can reach them. Urgent care clinics handle anything short of an emergency far more cheaply and quickly than an emergency room, and are the right choice for a sprain, an infection or stitches.
Official health authority: the CDC travellers' health pages, the US federal health authority for visitors. covers the US public health guidance, with the National Hurricane Center and the National Weather Service the authorities for storm tracks, flash flood warnings and heat advisories
Embassy contact: the United States is the host country, so there is no US embassy to contact. Your own country's embassy is in Washington DC, with consulates in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Miami and Boston. Find yours before you travel and save the number.
Official tourism authority: Brand USA, the national tourism marketing body. covers Houston and Texas visitor information, with NASA's Johnson Space Center the authority for what the tram tours can reach on a given day
Takeaways
Book the NASA tram tour, not just the visitor centre ticket.
The Menil and the Rothko Chapel are free and are the best hour in the city.
Never drive into water on a road. That is the Houston rule.
You will want a car, unless you are staying on the rail corridor.
Solo women safety assessment: Houston is a straightforward city to visit alone, with the caveat that it is enormous and built for driving, so a solo traveller spends more time in a car or a rideshare here than in almost any other American city on this list. The districts visitors use, the Museum District, Montrose, Rice Village, the Heights, Midtown and the Medical Center, are ordinary places for a woman to walk by day; downtown is busy on weekdays and empties at the weekend, which makes it feel quieter rather than unsafe. Violent crime is above the American average and heavily concentrated in residential areas a visitor has no reason to enter, while the crime most likely to touch you is a CAR BREAK-IN, so leave nothing visible in a parked vehicle anywhere, including a museum lot in daylight. 911 REACHES POLICE, AMBULANCE AND FIRE, and the Texas Medical Center holds Level I trauma centres at Memorial Hermann and Ben Taub. THE HONEST RISK IN HOUSTON IS WATER, AND IT IS THE THING NO TRAVEL ADVISORY MENTIONS. This city floods, repeatedly and sometimes catastrophically: Harvey in 2017 set the national rainfall record for a tropical cyclone and killed dozens of people, and it does not take a hurricane for an underpass to fill in twenty minutes during an ordinary summer storm. Watch the forecast daily between May and October, never drive into water however shallow it looks, and if you travel between June and November, keep emergency alerts on, know your hotel's hurricane plan and carry insurance that covers weather disruption. The second risk is heat with humidity, which defeats the body's own cooling, so treat mornings as outdoor time and afternoons as museum and tunnel time.
Reading On
Houston pairs with the rest of Texas rather than standing alone: the Austin packing list is under three hours west and is the state's music city, the Dallas packing list is four hours north and the Fort Worth packing list covers the cattle town and the museums beside it. East along the Gulf, the New Orleans packing list shares the humidity, the hurricane season and a great deal of the food culture, and is the natural second city on a Gulf coast trip. For the country, the United States travel guide for women carries the transport, the health insurance question and the regions in full. For why fine wool beats cotton in humid heat and in a 70F museum on the same afternoon, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
