Crockett Family Resort

Crockett Family Resort is almost smack bang in the middle of Houston (126 miles), Dallas (165 miles) and Austin (182 miles), and is a mere 11 miles from downtown Crockett, where you'll find music venues, bars, restaurants and several museums and fine examples of colonial architecture, such as the 19th-century Downes-Aldrich House, rumoured to be the most spectacular of its kind in the locale. The 660-acre Mission Tejas State Park in the East Texas Piney Woods region is within 40 minutes' drive of Crockett Family Resort. Plod around the hiking and nature trails there before you pitstop for a picnic, and then continue with a bit of fishing in the pond that lies nearby. Davy Crockett National Forest, Fairfield Lake State Park and Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area – a United States Forest Service-owned ground with a splendid swimming beach – are within easy reach too. History buffs are also well catered to around here: several good historic monuments are a short drive away, such as Jim Hogg Historic Site in Rusk, Texas Forestry Museum in Lufkin, and Weeping Mary's Caddo Mounds State Historic Site – an archaeological and culture spot that's made up of a village and a ceremonial centre with a burial mound and a couple of platform mounds. For a car-free tour of the area, hop on the Texas State Railroad and relax with a drink and nibbles while you're taken on a serene four-hour steam train journey along 25 miles of the Piney Woods region between the Texan cities of Rusk and Palestine.