Start from 108 curated places around Dallas, TX, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Pecan Lodge
Deep Ellum brisket counter that put modern Dallas BBQ on the national map — Justin and Diane Fourton's pit produces the city's most consistent moist brisket and the Hot Mess sweet potato is the side worth carrying out. The line is the price of admission.
Lockhart Smokehouse
Bishop Arts BBQ outpost from the granddaughter of Kreuz Market's founder, with sausages still shipped from Lockhart and brisket sliced to order on butcher paper. The Central-Texas-style room with a bar feels closer to Hill Country than to a Dallas chain.
Trails & outdoors
Katy Trail
Three-and-a-half-mile paved urban greenbelt on a former railroad line from American Airlines Center north to Mockingbird Station — Dallas's most-used trail and the cleanest way to walk between Uptown and SMU without a car. Separate soft-surface track for runners.
White Rock Lake Trail
9.4-mile paved loop around the city's water-supply reservoir on the east side — most popular trail in Dallas, used for cycling, running, and weekend strolls with stops at the Arboretum, the spillway, and a half-dozen boathouses. Mostly flat, mostly shaded.
Things to do
Dallas Museum of Art
Encyclopedic Arts District museum with 24,000 works spanning ancient Mediterranean to contemporary, free general admission, and rotating major loan shows. The anchor of the Arts District and worth a half day.
Nasher Sculpture Center
Renzo Piano-designed sculpture pavilion in the Arts District with a Calder, de Kooning, Picasso, and Rodin collection plus a two-acre walled outdoor garden. The garden is the room most people remember.
Landmarks & sights
The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
JFK assassination museum on the floor where Oswald fired, with the sniper's perch preserved behind glass and a wall of recordings from the day. Heavier and better-curated than the bus-tour reputation suggests.
Klyde Warren Park
Five-acre downtown deck park built over the recessed Woodall Rodgers Freeway, with food trucks, a dog run, a children's lawn, and free yoga most weekday mornings. The bridge between the Arts District and Uptown that locals actually use.