Big Thicket & the Golden Triangle

Start at the Kountze visitor center, where rangers sort the preserve's scattered units for you, and learn why Congress made this 1974 string of pearls the country's first national preserve.

Texas's far southeast corner: nearly two miles of Gulf shoreline backed by 4,000 acres of marsh, reached by boardwalk or paddle trail, rebuilt after Rita and Ike.

More than 250 acres on Adams Bayou, begun by H. J. Lutcher Stark in 1937, with garden rooms, a cypress-tupelo swamp, a heronry blind and free pontoon tours in season.

A 705-acre state park on Steinhagen Reservoir at the meeting of the Neches and Angelina rivers, with about 14 miles of paddling trails through sloughs and more than 200 campsites.

A 2,466-acre state park on one of the few free-flowing creeks in Texas, with a launch for the Village Creek Paddling Trail, boat rentals and sandy-upland trails in the Big Thicket.

A waterfront park at the mouth of the Sabine where the earthwork of Fort Griffin stood, with a Dowling statue, a Union memorial, wartime magazines and a walkway for fishing.

Port Arthur's regional museum in a former bank building: fossils, Native Americans, the petroleum story, a 125-foot history mural and Halls of Fame for musicians, athletes and artists.

A state archives and museum north of Liberty with an exhibit on Southeast Texas history and a campus of historic buildings, including an 1848 house and an 1898 church.

A white-marble museum in Orange built by the Stark Foundation and opened in 1978, holding Western art, American Indian art, Audubon's Birds of America and Steuben glass, free to enter.

A Beaux-Arts Colonial Revival mansion finished in 1906 and lived in by one family for 75 years, with free guided tours of three furnished floors, the carriage house and gardens.

A re-created oil boomtown on the Lamar University campus, with a derrick, period shops, a 1941 granite monument and an optional re-enactment of the January 1901 Lucas gusher.