Dallas/Fort Worth

Thirty miles of interstate separate two cities that get lumped under one metro name, and the origins explain why they never merged into one personality. Dallas started in 1841 as a trading post on a bluff above the Trinity River, founded by John Neely Bryan, and its name is most often attributed — the exact origin is disputed — to U.S. Vice President George M. Dallas. Fort Worth started eight years later, in 1849, as a U.S. Army outpost named for General William Jenkins Worth; the Army abandoned the post by 1853, and what grew in its place was a stop on the cattle trails north, not a garrison town. One city grew up trading money. The other grew up trading cattle. Neither has fully let go of it.

Dallas leaned into the money. Downtown is glass towers and I.M. Pei’s modernist City Hall, with the skyline anchored by Reunion Tower — locals just call it “the Ball” — a 561-foot geodesic sphere finished in 1978 with an observation deck 60 seconds up by elevator. Eighteen arts organizations, including the Dallas Museum of Art, the Meyerson Symphony Center and the Nasher Sculpture Center, sit inside a 118-acre downtown Arts District. Dallas is also home to one of the more visited historical sites in the country: the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, a fact-based museum in the former Texas School Book Depository examining President Kennedy’s 1963 assassination and its aftermath. It draws roughly 400,000 visitors a year and takes about an hour to walk — not a headline for the trip.

Fort Worth kept the boots on. Locals still call it Cowtown, and an 1875 newspaper hung on the other nickname that stuck, Panther City, after describing the town as so sleepy a panther could nap undisturbed in the street. The Fort Worth Stockyards, once one of the country’s largest livestock markets, were selling roughly a million head of cattle a year by 1907, and the historic district today still runs that twice-daily cattle drive down Exchange Avenue. A few miles west, three serious museums — the Kimbell, the Modern, and the Amon Carter — sit close enough to walk between, which is an unusual amount of world-class architecture for one bend of the Trinity River.

The Fort Worth Stockyards is the one stop in this guide that isn’t really about looking at something old — it’s still working. Cattle have moved through here since 1866, the Fort Worth Stock Yards Company was incorporated in 1893, and the yards were still selling about a million head a year by 1907. Business faded once auctions moved closer to where cattle were actually raised, but the 98-acre historic district survived, filled in with restaurants, bars and boot shops, and kept the one thing that makes it more than a shopping strip: real cowhands still drive a longhorn herd down Exchange Avenue, weather permitting, twice a day.

Joe T. Garcia’s has served Tex-Mex in Fort Worth since 1935, long enough that the James Beard Foundation named it one of America’s Classics. Nobody agonizes over the menu — most tables just take the standing dinner and let the enchiladas and margaritas do the rest. It functions less like a restaurant and more like a rite of passage for anyone visiting Cowtown.

For the Dallas side of the argument, walk into Pecan Lodge in Deep Ellum. Justin and Diane Fourton started it as a stall at the Dallas Farmers Market in 2010, named it for Justin’s grandfather’s ranch, and built enough of a reputation on the brisket that Texas Monthly ranked it among the state’s top four barbecue joints in 2013. Show up hungry and early — Texas barbecue joints run out of meat, not customers.

14 breweries within 10 miles of Dallas/Fort Worth, 5 of them brewpubs with a kitchen.

Brewpub locations from Open Brewery DB (MIT)

FC Dallas plays its home games in Frisco, well outside the city, so it doesn’t make this list. There’s also no Fort Worth-based team in the four biggest pro leagues — the closest the city came, the independent Fort Worth Cats, folded in 2015 after its league shut down. Fort Worth’s home team in the truest sense is TCU.

Getting between the two downtowns takes about 30 miles on I-30. If you’d rather not drive it, the Trinity Railway Express commuter train has connected Dallas Union Station and Fort Worth’s T&P Station since 1996, and takes roughly an hour each way. Most road-trippers still rent a car; DFW International Airport sits almost exactly between the two cities.

Best season is spring or fall. Average summer highs run around 96°F in both cities in July and August, and spring can bring severe storms, so check the forecast if you’re visiting March through May.

Pick a side to sleep on. Downtown Dallas and Fort Worth’s Sundance Square both have walkable hotel clusters; basing in one and day-tripping into the other beats shuttling back and forth every night.

Parking rules differ by city and by block. Fort Worth’s city meters in the central business district, the medical district and along University Street near TCU run 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and are free after 6 p.m., all day Saturday and Sunday, and on city-observed holidays; meters in the Cultural District, on Will Rogers West, run 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week. Dallas’s May 2024 on-street parking policy describes meters as active Monday to Sunday, with downtown hours of 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. on some blocks and 7 a.m. to midnight on others, so the posted sign on each block governs. The Stockyards runs paid lots that take credit cards and no cash: self-parking is $12.50^* Monday to Wednesday, $17.50^* on Thursday and $22.50^* Friday to Sunday, plus sales tax and a service fee. At the AT&T Performing Arts Center, pre-paid self-parking in the Lexus Red garage is $22^* ($24^* at the gate), and the venue says parking is limited and subject to availability.

2 public campgrounds within 25 miles of Dallas/Fort Worth, all bookable ahead. Public campgrounds run by federal agencies. State-park and private campgrounds are not included.

*Fees subject to change, please check fortworthstockyards.com for updated information.

*Fees subject to change, please check attpac.org for updated information.

Fort Worth Stockyards

Address

Exchange Avenue, Fort Worth, TX 76164

Hours

District open daily; cattle drives run twice a day, weather permitting

Price

Free to walk the district; individual attractions, tours and the rodeo charge separately

Link

fortworthstockyards.com

We checked opening hours and fees on 2026-10-14. These change without notice — confirm with fortworth.com, fortworthstockyards.com, fortworthtexas.gov, dallascityhall.com and attpac.org the week you travel.

Straight-line distance from Dallas/Fort Worth, not drive time.

• Dallas Love Field (DAL) — 5 miles
• Dallas Fort Worth International (DFW) — 16 miles
• Fort Worth Meacham International (FTW) — 32 miles