Rediscover the simple pleasures of a day trip with Day Trips from San Antonio. This guide is packed with hundreds of exciting things for locals and vacationers to do, see, and discover within a two-hour drive of the San Antonio metro area.

"Find the Texas of your dreams -- do some two-stepping in a honky-tonk dance hall, float down the Rio Grande through chiseled desert canyons, sample fiery Tex-Mex, visit world-class museums (and historic sights) and watch the big Texas sky light up a field of Hill Country bluebonnets. Our author has personally visited every hotel, shop, restaurant, attraction and nightspot listed in this book -- and hundreds more -- to better guide you on the trip of a lifetime. Here's to the Lone Star State!" -- Back cover.

Buckle up for the next installment in our 'Epic' series and the follow-up to Epic Bike Rides of the World. Epic Drives of the World, a beautiful hardback, showcases 50 of the greatest road trips on Earth, from classic routes in America, Australia and Europe, to incredible adventures in Asia and Africa. Organised by continent, each route features a first-hand account, awe-inspiring photographs, illustrated maps and practical advice on when to go, how to get there, where to stay and what to eat. From Hawaii's Hana Highway and Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh Road, to Utah's National Park Circuit and Germany's Black Forest High Road, Epic Drives of the World will inspire any motorist to hit the open road. African and Middle East drives include: The self-drive Safari (Zambia) Crossing the Kalahari (Botswana) Passing over the Panorama Route (South Africa) Marrakesh to Taroudannt (Morocco) Cruising Clarence Drive (South Africa) The Americas drives include: The Highway to Hana in Hawaii (USA) The Salar de Uyuni (Bolivia) The Pacific Coast Highway (USA) Crossing the Carretera Austral (Chile) Canada's Icefields Parkway Asia drives include: On the trail of Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) Crossing the Kathmandu Loop (Nepal) Hightailing from Thimphu to Gangtey (Bhutan) South Korea: From top to toe The road from Srinagar to Manali (India) Europe drives include: Black Forest High Road (Germany) The Wilds of Abruzzo (Italy) Croatia's Adriatic coast Norway's west coast The Magic Circle (Iceland) Oceania drives include: Southern Alps explorer (New Zealand) The Great Ocean Road (Australia) Northland & the Bay of Islands (New Zealand) Following the Captain Cook Highway (Australia) Alice Springs to Darwin (Australia) About Lonely Planet: Lonely Planet is a leading travel media company and the world's number one travel guidebook brand, providing both inspiring and trustworthy information for every kind of traveller since 1973. Over the past four decades, we've printed over 145 million guidebooks and phrasebooks for 120 languages, and grown a dedicated, passionate global community of travellers. You'll also find our content online, and in mobile apps, video, 14 languages, 12 international magazines, armchair and lifestyle books, ebooks, and more, enabling you to explore every day. Lonely Planet enables the curious to experience the world fully and to truly get to the heart of the places they find themselves, near or far from home. TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice Awards 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 winner in Favorite Travel Guide category 'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' - New York Times 'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves; it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' - Fairfax Media (Australia) Important Notice: The digital edition of this book may not contain all of the images found in the physical edition.

Everything is bigger in Texas—including ghosts—especially in San Antonio, considered one of the ten most haunted cities in the world by National Geographic. As the saying goes, “dead men tell no tales.” Or do they? From its humble beginnings as a Spanish settlement in 1691 to the bloody battle at the Alamo, San Antonio’s history is rich in haunting tales. Discover Old San Antonio’s most haunted places and uncover the history that lies waiting for those who dare enter their doorways. Take a peek inside the Menger Hotel, the “Most Haunted Hotel in Texas,” and just a block away, peer into the Emily Morgan Hotel, renovated after a decade of being vacant, was once the city’s first hospitals where many men and women lost their lives. Explore the San Fernando Cathedral, where people are buried within the walls and visitors claim to see faces mysteriously appear. Uncover the legends behind Bexar County Jail. Join authors James and Lauren Swartz and decide for yourself what truly lurks behind the Alamo City’s fabled past. Includes photos!

From one of the founders of Hill Country Lavender comes this honest, funny, and poignant memoir of a woman who gives up a lot for the man she loves—her beloved blue state, bagels and all-night bodegas—only to wonder: Was it too much? In 1990, Jeannie Ralston was a successful magazine writer and bona fide city girl—the type of woman who couldn't imagine living on soil not shaded by skyscrapers. By 1994, she had called off an engagement, married Robb, a National Geographic photographer, and was living in Blanco Texas, population 1600. In The Unlikely Lavender Queen, Ralston offers a lively chronicle of her life as a wife, new mother and an urban settler in rural Texas. As she labors to convert a dilapidated barn into a livable home, deal with scorpions and unbearably hot summers, and raise two young children while Robb is frequently away on assignment, she realizes her ultimate struggle is to reconcile her life plans and goals with her husband’s without coming out the proverbial loser. And just when it seems like she might be losing that fight—and herself—a little purple bloom changes her life. For centuries lavender has been a mystical herb, so valuable to ancient Romans that a bushel would cost nearly a month’s wages. But when Robb returns from a trip to Provence with a plan for growing lavender on their land, Ralston is not convinced—in fact the last thing she needed or wanted was to take up farming on top of everything else. Then, much to her surprise, she slowly but surely falls in love with lavender, and in the course of growing and selling blooms, hosting the public at the farm, and creating lavender products, she discovers a new side of herself. A few short years later, Ralston had built Hill Country Lavender, a thriving commercial enterprise that transforms both her little corner of Texas and her life. The Unlikely Lavender Queen will resonate with all women who have faced the tough choices that come with “having it all” and secretly (or not so secretly) hoped for great adventure to come along and surprise them. Ralston’s memoir is a testament to the fact that such adventures await us around every bend in life.

For local travelers looking for an experience in their own backyard, Day Trips® from Austin is the essential guide to things to see and do around Austin—from Waco's Texas Ranger Hall of Fame to Museum of Handmade Furniture in Braunfels. With a population of nearly 700,000, and a metro area of 1.7 million and growing, America's #1 College Town (Travel Channel) is an ideal starting point for these and other activities: * Do something sweet: Visit Blue Bell Creamery in Brenham to see the making of ice cream and you can enjoy a free scoop at the tour's end. * Do something wonderful: Take a ride on a miniature train for a tour of Texas's largest petting zoo, and have your mind bent in the Anti-Gravity House at Wonder World in San Marcos. * Do something outdoorsy: Vacation at one of the many dude ranches that dot the landscape around Bandera for horseback riding, cookouts, fishing, hiking, and even country-western dance lessons.

Rediscover the simple pleasures of a day trip with Day Trips from Houston. This guide is packed with hundreds of exciting things for locals and vacationers to do, see, and discover within a two-hour drive of the Houston metro area. With full trip-planning information, Day Trips from Houston helps make the most of a brief getaway.

Rediscover the simple pleasures of a day trip with Day Trips from Houston. This guide is packed with hundreds of exciting things for locals and vacationers to do, see, and discover within a two-hour drive of the Houston metro area. With full trip-planning information, Day Trips from Houston helps make the most of a brief getaway.

Are you going to the Alamo? Read this book first, then take it with you to see and remember it all. Most visitors just see the Alamo compound, where it ended, but the 1836 siege and battle took place all over the city. The Alamo Story and Battleground Tour is the first Alamo history book that tells the story at the places throughout San Antonio where Alamo events actually happened. This book combines an Alamo history from 1685 to 1836 with a self-guided tour. The places on the tour may be experienced through the pictures in the book or by following the maps and directions the book provides and actually walking the ground where the Alamo heroes walked. Covering a distance of about two miles, much of it along the San Antonio River Walk, the written history and self-guided tour take you to the locations of: Davy Crockett's ashes, Jim Bowie's river palace, General Santa Anna's death flag, the Cos surrender house, La Villita, the forbidden footbridge, the Old Mill Ford, Jim Bowie's wedding in 1831, and many others. "It was a really interesting concept on that book and I enjoyed reading it. He did a good job on that one." − Daughter of the Republic of Texas, Alamo Committee Member (Designated Reviewer) "We can see that this book was a true labor of love....." − Ann Serrano, Librarian, The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas "To see the Alamo in a new way, you need to get this book." - Texas Country Reporter "Your research and knowledge and gift for the telling of this story is truly a tribute to those brave men who perished at that place and time in history." − Reader