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Is everything bigger in the Lone Star State? Or is it just a big myth? Learn just how normal Texans really are on this adventure exploring Texas history, culture and politics — from richly diverse San Antonio to the LBJ Boyhood Home in Hill Country to the state capital of Austin. The Old West’s six-guns are gone, but influences of the 26 ethnic groups that settled Texas beckon at every turn.

Activity Level

Keep the Pace

Walking up to three miles daily. Must be able to climb stairs and board motor coach with minimal assistance. Standing in museums for up to two hours a day.

Best of all, you’ll…

Take a study cruise along the River Walk in festive San Antonio to find out how the city blends new development with historic preservation of cultural treasures.
Delve into the life of our 36th president at the LBJ Boyhood Home
Get the lowdown on politics in Austin, and find out why the city is known as the “Live Music Capital of the World” with a private performance from a Grammy Award-winning artist.

Featured Expert

All trip experts

Carolina Castillo Crimm

A retired professor of history, Dr. Caroline Castillo Crimm won many local and state-wide awards, including the prestigious Piper Award as one of the best teachers in Texas. Dedicated to Texas and Hispanic culture, her Spanish family came to Texas originally in 1792 although she was born and raised in Mexico City. The author of “De Leon: A Tejano Family History,” she has appeared on PBS and “The History Channel.”

Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.

Floyd Domino View biography

Floyd Domino is an American musician known for his work in the genre of Western swing. Born in California, Floyd’s close association with Western swing coincided when he joined the group Asleep at the Wheel at 19. After seven years with the band, he still joins them for featured performances. While Floyd is widely recognized for the revival of Western swing, he began his career in jazz, boogie-woogie, swing and blues piano. The Floyd Domino Jazz Trio showcases a unique blend of jazz and blues.

Carolina Castillo Crimm View biography

Bill Perryman View biography

A fifth generation Texan and an award-winning teacher, Bill Perryman is known throughout Texas for his historical portrayals of heroic figures in Texas and American history and for his teacher trainings, seminars and educational explorations of historic San Antonio. He is the founder of History In Person Theater which is an official arts program for the Texas Commission on the Arts. Bill’s passion for history captivates audiences!

Ken Erfurth View biography

Ken Erfurth is a life-long resident of San Antonio whose interest in the region’s history, culture, and architecture began at an early age. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Houston and is a registered architect. He has been conducting educational adventures in San Antonio for various groups for over 20 years. In recent years, Ken has used photography to document the unique visual aspects of his native city and surrounding area. His images have been exhibited and published in multiple forums.

Tom Alter View biography

Tom Alter is an assistant professor at Texas State University where he specializes in labor and Texas history. He received his BA in history from Indiana University, his MA in history from Texas State University, and his PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Tom is the author of “Toward a Cooperative Commonwealth: The Transplanted Roots of Farmer-Labor Radicalism in Texas” (University of Illinois Press, 2022).

Sheila Mehta View biography

Sheila Mehta, a recent addition to the LBJ Presidential Library, has spent her career in education. She joined the Library after almost 15 years as a high school social studies teacher. Her academic background lies in U.S. history, social studies, and relationships between conflict and society. Sheila helps visitors, students, and educators learn more about the Johnson administration and nuances of the 1960s, complementing the Library’s mission to be a “center for intellectual activity… while meeting the challenges of a changing world.”

Grace Simpson View biography

Grace Simpson worked in IT as a developer and business analyst before becoming entering the travel industry as a group leader. She enjoys being outdoors and playing tennis, other racquet sports, and golf. She now lives in Texas and loves to show what the Lone Star State has to offer.

Suggested Reading List (11 books)

Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop

You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.

Search for a Title

On the Road: San Antonio, Texas Hill Country and Austin

Program Number: 10459

Austin City Limits: 25 Years of American Music

by John T. Davis

This book documents in words and pictures, anecdotes and behind-the-scenes images, the performances of the more than five hundred stellar recording artists who have appeared on the show. This book features a foreword by Lyle Lovett and over 200 color illustrations.

Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth

by Burrough, Brian, Chris Tomlinson and Jason Stanford

Reviled by some and applauded by others, this controversial popular history focuses on factors related to the history of the Alamo. A saucy, journalistic-style read, it provides a perspective on how Texans think, information about the current redesign of Alamo Plaza, and a great bibliography for further study.

Texas, My Texas: Musings of the Rambling Boy

by Lonn Taylor

In a collection of essays about Texas gathered from his West Texas newspaper column, Lonn Taylor traverses the very best of Texas geography, Texas history, and Texas personalities. In a state so famous for its pride, Taylor manages to write a very honest, witty, and wise book about Texas past and Texas present.

Seat of Empire: The Embattled Birth of Austin, Texas

by Jeffrey Stuart Kerr

The founding of Austin sparked one of the Republic’s first great political battles, pitting against each other two Texas titans: Lamar, who in less than a year had risen to vice president from army private, and Sam Houston, the hero of San Jacinto and a man both loved and hated throughout the Republic.

The Alamo Remembered, Tejano Accounts & Perspectives

by Timothy M. Matovina

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History

by S. C. Gwynne

S. C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches.

Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Laws That Changed America

by Nick Kotz

Lyndon Baines Johnson and Martin Luther King, Jr., were thrust together in the aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Both men sensed a historic opportunity and began a delicate dance of accommodation that moved them, and the entire nation, toward the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Drawing on a wealth of newly available sources -- Johnson's taped telephone conversations, voluminous FBI wiretap logs, previously secret communications between the FBI and the president -- Nick Kotz gives us a dramatic narrative, rich in dialogue, that presents this momentous period with thrilling immediacy. Judgment Days offers needed perspective on a presidency too often linked solely to the tragedy of Vietnam.

Big, Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas

by Harrigan, Stephen

Written by a great story teller, this readable, monumental work is exactly what the title implies: a comprehensive history of Texas complete with wonderful historic photographs and a focus on the stories of individual people. Not for the fainthearted, the time invested in reading this is well-spent. Actually, the book is so readable that devouring it is a pleasure. It has been described as “a must read for Texas aficionados.”

Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream: The Most Revealing Portrait of a President and Presidential Power Ever Written

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Widely praised and enormously popular, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream is a work of biography like few others. With uncanny insight and a richly engrossing style, the author renders LBJ in all his vibrant, conflicted humanity.

Friedrichsburg: Colony of the German Furstenverein

by Friedrich Armand Strubberg and James C. Kearney

As Texas Goes: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda

by Gail Collins

Gail Collins, the best-selling author and columnist for the New York Times, visited Texas and discovered that in Texas, where Bush, Cheney, Rove, & Perry had created a conservative political agenda that is now sweeping the country and defining our national identity. Through its vigorous support of banking deregulation, lax environmental standards, and draconian tax cuts, through its fierce championing of states rights, gun ownership, and, of course, sexual abstinence, Texas, with Governor Rick Perry’s presidential ambitions, has become the bellwether of a far-reaching national movement that continues to have profound social and economic consequences for us all. Like it or not, as Texas goes, so goes the nation.

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