El Texas Camino Real

The road to Texas Travel for 200 years.

Central Texas Tours 

|The Camino Real - Historical Info |

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There is so much history and unique culture to see in Texas if you know where to look.  Most tourists in Texas are limited to the major tourist sites in the large cities.  Sadly they miss the real Texas - the smaller towns and the vast rural Texas where the real Texas is still to be found.   

The Central Texas Music scene is hot.
If you really want to see Texas history and experience authentic Texas culture get out of the big cities.  Rent a car, get a map and hit the road.  Or hire a guide who can take you there. 

In Central Texas and the Hill Country you can go to a rodeo in Bandera, see Texas architecture in Gonzales, eat Bar B Q and see an oil field in Luling, shop for western leather work in Yoakum, experience Texas music in New Braunfels and San Marcos, see beautiful religious folk art in Schuelenburg,  travel the historic Camino Real from Mexico to Louisiana, visit restored Spanish missions and Texan battlefields in Goliad (in their original rural settings), explore frontier forts in Bracketville and so much more. 

The Camino Real

Camino Real means "Kings Highway" in Spanish.  The Camino Real is the oldest road in Texas.  Starting as one of the many well used Indian trails in Texas, the Spanish expanded and improved it to link their Louisiana and east Texas missions and forts to Mexico.  It runs about 700 miles, from Monterey Mexico to Robline Louisiana. The Camino connects more than geographic and political regions.  It is a road leading through Texas history. 

Today much of the Camino is still there.  Most of it lays along scenic rural roads with some of the most spectacular scenery in Texas.  You can drive down it and along the way see Spanish missions in San Antonio, pine forests in east Texas, beautiful rivers in New Braunfels, San Marcos and La Grange, Caddo Indian mounds in Alto and a dozen historic small towns.   You can follow in the footsteps of Spanish missionaries in 1691, the Mexican and Texan armies in 1835, American settlers, German settlers and personages such as Kit Carson, Davy Crocket, Jim Bowie, Sam Houston, Santa Anna, Lyndon Johnson and many more. 

The San Antonio to San Marcos Camino Real  E-Tour Here is an e-tour that takes you along the Camino Real from the north edge of San Antonio to San Marcos. It has detailed directions and dozens of color pictures of landmarks. It also has the history of each place along the road and contact information for businesses such as places to eat and lodging along the road. Check it out and you will want to take the real life tour. Print it out and take it with you.  Better yet order a map below to take with you.  A CD version of this tour will be available soon.

The Big Map of the Camino Real from San Antonio to San marcos.  This page is a test of some new web technology from AutoCad.  It posts scaleable drawings on a web page.  I would like to know if it works on your browser.   You will need MS Explorer version 6. 

The Camino Inside of New Braunfels Map

Same as the above.  You will need MS Explorer version 6. 

To get a printed copy of these maps mailed to you; send $8.00 to the address below.  These maps are printed on high quality heavy paper with archival inks.  Minus the cost of printing, packaging and postage, at this rate if I sell about 3000 of them I will break even on the time it took to make the maps!  

Texarch Associates
490 Rusk
New Braunnfels TX 78130
 
 Map of the Whole Camino Real with the locations of Spanish Colonial missions, presidios and villas and list of the same with dates of founding.
 
Central Texas Tours. Tour Guide Services in Central Texas.  Planning a trip to Texas?  Want to see the historical places, small towns and back roads?  Want a Texas historian and naturalist as a guide?  Want to travel to out of the way places in Texas?   Take a look and see how we can make your trip special.
 

 

Links

Lists of counties, Cities, and Places along the Camino.

Send me info on these cities and counties on the Camino Real and I will do short pages on each OR send me a URL to a site with this information and I will link to that. Remember, the focus here is the Camino Real, and tourism information, not the new industrial park or convention center. Local history links would be great for this. I NEED AT LEAST ONE CONTACT, PHONE AND ADDRESS, LISTED IN EACH OF THESE PLACES. I can put up more if you send em in. Maybe someday I can do maps like the ones below for each county and region and add them to these links.

Counties on the lower Camino Arriba this is the one with the 1918 DAR markers.

Counties on the upper Camino?? I need more exact locations for the upper route with reference to modern landmarks to complete this. But the road is clearly there. This route includes Austin.

Cities on the Camino

Historical places on the Camino Send me the ones near you.

 

 Excerpts we can learn from

"Community Guide to Planning & Managing a

Scenic Byway"

by U.S. Department of Transportation

Federal Highway Administration

They have a great web site at WWW.Byways.org

The Byways program has done and is doing extensive studies on the economic ans social impact of historic and scenic trails on specific regions. They have completed 15 economic impact studies. They also have marketing studies and resource management studies.

This is a really good how -to book for creating scenic Byways

 

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Copyright, 2000, by Texarch Associates and Edward Moore

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