Here’s our four day intinerary on a trip to Houston.

In November 2024, my family was planning to go to Texas. My sister had surprised my mother and father with tickets to go to Houston, Texas, as the church my mother is obsessed with is located there. I wasn’t supposed to go, as I was originally planning to be in India, but unfortunately life works in weird ways and I never made it there.

So I booked a last minute ticket to go to Houston about two weeks before. It was surprisingly affordable considering how I had booked so last minute; usually we buy our tickets in advance for hundreds of dollars cheaper. I had flight credit, so it was basically free, but the entire flight was only $270 for me with both flights being nonstop.

That’s impressive considering how much flights are these days. We were impressed in general at how much cheaper going to Texas was compared to our usual Northeastern day trips. Even the hotel in Sugarland, which was a nicer chain from Mariott, was weirdly cheap. So was our rental car.

The sad part was that it rained almost the entire trip. And when I say it rained, it poured. We had to do more indoor activities because of how much rain was coming down; we tried to avoid the museums, as they were weirdly expensive compared to everything else.

I don’t want to ramble too much in the introduction, so let’s get into the blog post. There’s a lot of ground to cover.

Day One: Bayou Bend, Downtown Houston, Pinkerton’s BBQ

On the first day, we got on our 7 AM flight from Baltimore-Washington International Airport and landed in Houston 9 AM CST. Despite our flight ticket saying that we would get there closer to 10 AM, we were almost an hour early getting in. We grabbed our rental car, then headed to our first destination: Bayou Bend.

My mother had picked this out as a place she wanted to go to. For $14, you can tour the historic home and the gardens throughout the property. We spent about two hours there, starting with the home. When we came, they were putting up the Christmas decorations, but you could tour the inside of the house with no problems.

We then wandered about half of the gardens. If you don’t have a map of the property like we did, you’re probably going to want one. But then we got hungry and decided to head to our lunch destination: Pinkerton’s BBQ.

There was a huge line at 1 PM, which was a testament to how popular this place was. My mom and I loved the pork ribs that were glazed, and the brisket was pretty good too. The banana pudding was so and so, but the macaroni was also pretty decent as well.

After that we headed into Downtown Houston to check out Phoenicia, a grocery store for Middle Eastern ingredients. My dad loved that place, but we had to head to the hotel after spending about forty minutes in there. We finished up the day relaxing at the hotel, as we had woken up at 3 AM EST for our flight.

Day Two: The Galleria, Original Ninfa’s, Phoenicia, TESO Life

My mom and sister woke up early on day two to go to Lakewood Church, but my dad and I decided to stay back in our hotel room. I got through my second book while we were chilling in the room while my dad took a long nap.

Once they came back from the church, they changed and we headed out into the room. We checked out a little waterfall park in the city part of town, but the main waterfalls were closed and it was raining. We got back into our car and then headed to Galleria, a nice mall. It’s definitely one of the nicest malls I’ve seen in the United States.

We spent about two hours at the mall. It was quite fancy, and the Christmas decorations were really nice. I recommend this mall if you’re into luxury shopping; I was surprised to see a Korean Gentle Monster in there, too.

But when we got hungry, we ventured to The Original Ninfa’s nearby. They offer free garage parking, but this restaurant says they were the first to create the fajita. My dad ordered that, I got the pork tacos, and my mom and sister got shrimp tacos. This was a ton of food, and I was not able to finish this at all.

My dad then wanted to go to the bigger location of Phoenicia, which was incredible. That was the biggest Middle Eastern grocery store I’ve ever seen in this country. It was wild. I picked up some Dubai chocolate from their bakery, which was fantastic. It was worth the money.

Once my dad picked up his groceries, we headed across the street to the TESO Life. I was excited to see one in Houston, and I bought one of my Nanci blind box dolls there and a Chinese peach Coke. We then headed to the hotel and relaxed again, despite the rain stopping at this point.

Day Three: Space Center Houston, Kasra Persian Grill, Qahwah House

On day four, my sister booked us tickets for the Space Center Houston. It was about an hour from the hotel, and I think I’m going to write a blog post separate about this experience. I think there were pros and cons, especially considering how much you pay and some of the tours are pretty brief.

While I’m glad I went to the Space Center, I don’t think I’d be coming back there. I live near the Smithsonians in Washington D.C., and even worked there at one point in my life, so I would just go to Washington next time.

After the Space Center, which we spent four and a half hours at, we went to Kasra Persian Grill four minutes down the road. And man, they had some of the best Iranian kabobs I’ve had in a while. Those kabobs were definitely made with love.

After Kasra, I wanted to go to Qahwah House near our hotel. I was shocked to see a Qahwah near the hotel, as I had only seen this Yemeni coffee house in New York. My sister and I treated our family to coffee, tea, and desserts. My go-to is the khaliat, which is a honey bread with cream cheese. It’s so good. I also had the Jubani coffee, which tasted more like tea than coffee.

Day Four: a journey back home.

On day four, it was time to go home. My family and I had flights at literally the same exact time, but mine was a nonstop. We got one last breakfast from our hotel, then drove an hour to Hobby Airport on the other side of the city.

Ironically, it was not raining on this day, so it was like Houston was telling us it was great to leave. There was no one at the airport, and because I was not checking a bag, I was checked in with my boarding pass in less than three minutes. Security was also a tiny line, and we wandered the airport for an hour.

I then went to my gate, bought an overpriced coconut water, and arrived in BWI at 3:15 PM. I got Chipotle and parked myself at the little food court in the Southwest wing in the airport. My family arrived over an hour later, and we drove home together.

All in all, I don’t know if I’d go back to Houston. It seems like a quiet place to live, but it was kind of coming across as also boring to live in. Granted, we didn’t ask any locals on what to do, but this might just be us doing Houston wrong! Let me know your suggestions if you’re from there.

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