States: Texas
Start near: Austin (starts here) · San Antonio (starts here)
US 290, the ranch roads and the Pedernales country
Hill Country: Austin to San Antonio the Long Way is a ~175-mile back-roads route from Austin to San Antonio on US 290, RR 1376, FM 473, TX 27 and Old Fredericksburg Road, driven in 2 days, that stays off I-35 in the region the atlas calls Beyond the Sabine.
Eighty miles apart on the interstate, Austin and San Antonio are two days apart the right way: west on US 290 through the Pedernales country, LBJ's ranch and the Texas White House, the German towns of Fredericksburg and Comfort, a beer under the oaks at Luckenbach, the Enchanted Rock dome, peaches in season and barbecue in every county, then down the Guadalupe and the old San Antonio road into the city. The Hill Country is where the South runs out and the West begins: German Unionists and Comanche ground, wildflowers in April, swimming holes in August.
📍 Texas Historical Commission markers at every Lutheran church and limestone courthouse; the Treue der Union monument in Comfort is the oldest to the Union in the South.
US 290 west out of Austin past Dripping Springs' distilleries, the Pedernales Falls turnoff, Johnson City's boyhood home and the LBJ Ranch at Stonewall, where the president is buried under the oaks, into the German capital of the hills.
Open pit, cash only, BYOB, since 1967; the brisket and sausage come off a fire that has arguably never gone out. Twelve miles off 290 and worth the detour.
The river steps down a staircase of limestone ledges; swimming downstream of the falls only, flash floods famous.
The Johnson Settlement and the house where Lyndon grew up, run by the Park Service; the courthouse square's Christmas lights are a Hill Country institution.
The Texas White House, the one-room Junction School, the family cemetery where LBJ lies, and the ranch still raising Herefords; drive it yourself with a free permit from the state park across the river.
Admiral Nimitz's hometown holds the country's largest museum on the Pacific theater, six acres including a Japanese garden; Main Street's 1850s Sunday houses and biergartens are the rest of the afternoon.
A pink granite dome the size of a town, rising 425 feet from the prairie; the Tonkawa heard it groan at night (it was cooling). Summit by 10 a.m. or the park closes the gate for capacity.
RR 1376 south through the peach orchards to Luckenbach's post office and dance hall, Sisterdale's one-building downtown, and the Guadalupe at Comfort, the Unionist town.
Population 3, bought by Hondo Crouch in 1970 and made famous by Waylon in 1977; pickers under the oaks every afternoon the weather allows, dances in the 1887 hall on weekends.
Founded by German freethinkers in 1847; the dance hall is from 1884 and the winery is in the old cotton gin.
The only monument to the Union south of the Mason-Dixon line raised in the war's own decade (1866): to the German Unionists killed at the Nueces in 1862 trying to reach Mexico. The flag flies at half-staff permanently. High Street's limestone storefronts are the best-preserved 19th-century business district in Texas.
A 1918 bat tower built to fight malaria, one of a handful left in the world, on private land visible from FM 473.
Old TX 27 and the frontage roads down the Guadalupe to Boerne, then the Cibolo country and the Old Fredericksburg Road into the city, with the Guadalupe's dance-hall spur at Gruene for anyone with an evening to spare.
The 'Key to the Hills': a Hill Country Mile of German storefronts on Main, and the Cibolo Center's marsh boardwalk and dinosaur tracks.
Texas's oldest dance hall (1878), unrestored on purpose: George Strait played Tuesday nights here before anyone knew; tubing the Guadalupe is downstairs. Forty miles east of Boerne on TX 46.
Four 18th-century missions south of the Alamo on the river, a World Heritage site and the actual point of the city; Mission San José's Rose Window and the mariachi Mass on Sunday.
The old Pearl brewery is the city's food hall and the Museum Reach is the River Walk nobody crowds; walk it from the Pearl to downtown.
Hill Country: Austin to San Antonio the Long Way is about 175 miles and takes 2 days at a back-roads pace.
It runs from Austin to San Antonio.
It follows US 290, RR 1376, FM 473, TX 27 and Old Fredericksburg Road.
It avoids I-35, using US 290, RR 1376, FM 473, TX 27 and Old Fredericksburg Road instead.
14 stops are mapped, including The Salt Lick, Pedernales Falls State Park, LBJ Boyhood Home, LBJ Ranch and National Museum of the Pacific War.
The atlas’s seasonal note for this route: “Peach season runs mid-May to August on US 290 and RR 1376; bluebonnets peak the first two weeks of April.”
Connects with: El Camino Real: The Texas Act · US 90 West: To the Alamo · US 90: Rice & Rails
More in the Beyond the Sabine: US 90 West: To the Alamo · El Camino Real: The Texas Act