For those small but mighty parks, why not squeeze two parks in one day?
Okay, not going to lie, there are some state parks in which it can be difficult to spend a whole day walking around and adventuring. Some of the parks are just small, but that is something that makes those parks special. Some ways to extend your trips to small parks could be bring a football or frisbee with a friend to play with, bring a hammock and book to just relax, or invite your whole friend group and have a fancy picnic. However, today, I’m going to talk about how we divide our days up between two small parks that are located less than an hour from each other.
Bryce and I have done this a couple of times, and I definitely think it is helpful to come up with a schedule or plan for visiting each park to ensure you maximize your day. We always like to sit down the night before heading to a park, even for trips to one park. I find it very helpful, for myself, to have a plan (sorry I’m not extremely spontaneous). It's important to calculate drive time along with the amount of time you want to spend at each Texas State Park. It is pretty easy to figure out drive time, but calculating the time spent at the park needs a little estimation. We like to look at the different trails we want to hike, and then we decide when we are going to eat and if there is anything extra we want to do at the parks.
I’m going to give some example timelines because it can be kind of hard to describe what we do without just laying everything out.
Visiting Galveston Island and Sheldon Lake
9:00 - Wake up in Galveston, Texas
9:30 - Leave for Galveston Island State Park
9:45 - Arrive at State Park
11:00 - Leave Galveston Island, Head back to Airbnb
*We probably would’ve stayed longer if the beach access wasn’t closed off (Reopens
in Spring 2021)
12:00 - Check out of Airbnb, Leave for San Jacinto Monument
1:30 - Arrive at San Jacinto State Historic Monument
2:00 - Leave for Sheldon Lake State Park and Environmental Learning Center
2:30 - Arrive at Sheldon Lake, Eat packed lunches
4:00 - Leave Sheldon Lake to go back to College Station
Visiting Caddo Lake and Martin Creek Lake
8:30 - Wake up in Longview, Texas
9:00 - Load up to head to Caddo Lake State Park
9:45 - Arrive at Caddo Lake, Hike around the Park
12:00 - Leave to pick up lunch somewhere quick (we wound up getting Wendy’s)
1:15 - Arrive at Martin Creek Lake State Park
3:30 - Leave park to head back to Longview
We estimate the time spent at each park by measuring the total number of miles we want to hike and leave about 20 minutes per mile. This is also to plan for time in which I would want to stop and take pictures along the way or just take everything in.
If you have the goal like us to visit as many Texas State Parks as possible, I recommend visiting multiple parks in one day. If they are less than an hour drive away from each other, and small enough, we have found it to be really beneficial!
Comments