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Texas

The Best of San Antonio and the Texas Hill Country

Program No. 22272RJ
Find out why San Antonio and the Hill Country are true Texas as you explore the River Walk and Texas Hill Country, enjoy authentic cuisine and learn about LBJ.

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Price will update based on selection
Prices displayed below are based on per person,doubleoccupancy.
DATES & starting prices
PRICES
Feb 12 - Feb 18, 2024
Starting at
1,849
Feb 26 - Mar 3, 2024
Starting at
1,849
Mar 4 - Mar 10, 2024
Starting at
1,999
Oct 14 - Oct 20, 2024
Starting at
1,849
Oct 21 - Oct 27, 2024
Starting at
1,849
Nov 4 - Nov 10, 2024
Starting at
1,849
DATES & starting prices
PRICES
Filling Fast!
Feb 12 - Feb 18, 2024
Starting at
2,299
Feb 26 - Mar 3, 2024
Starting at
2,299
Filling Fast!
Mar 4 - Mar 10, 2024
Starting at
2,589
Filling Fast!
Oct 14 - Oct 20, 2024
Starting at
2,299
Oct 21 - Oct 27, 2024
Starting at
2,299
Nov 4 - Nov 10, 2024
Starting at
2,299

At a Glance

Bold colors, brave battles, big fandangos and bigger appetites — San Antonio stands a breed apart from other American cities. As gateway to the borderlands and crossroads of culture, it showcases the best of North and South, old and new. Experience San Antonio as the embodiment of the strike-it-rich spirit of Texas, a city embracing contemporary culture while paying homage to its storied past.
Activity Level
Keep the Pace
Keep the Pace: Walking up to 4 miles, climbing stairs. Getting on and off motor coach and barges with minimal assistance. Standing in a museum for up to two hours.

Best of all, you’ll…

  • Stroll along the landscaped walkways of the River Walk and discover the city's rich history with a visit to the Spanish missions designated as a UNESCO World Heritage cultural treasure.
  • Explore Fredericksburg, in the majestic Texas Hill Country, to learn of its rich German heritage.
  • Recall the era of LBJ as you learn about his early life, legislative accomplishments and visit his Texas ranch.
Featured Expert
All Experts
Profile Image
Carolina Castillo Crimm
A retired professor of history, Dr. Caroline Castillo Crimm won many local and state-wide awards, including the prestigious Piper Award as one of the best teachers in Texas. Dedicated to Texas and Hispanic culture, her Spanish family came to Texas originally in 1792 although she was born and raised in Mexico City. The author of “De Leon: A Tejano Family History,” she has appeared on PBS and “The History Channel.”

Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.

Profile Image of Gregg Eckhardt
Gregg Eckhardt View biography
Gregg Eckhardt is an environmental scientist with 26 years of experience in environmental modeling and analysis, water resource planning and development, state and federal permitting, and water treatment. A senior analyst for the San Antonio Water System, he is involved in the management of the city's water supply and wastewater systems, and much of his work focuses on developing and implementing environmental initiatives. Outside of work, he is active in community education, providing lectures and web-based learning curriculum on regional water resources and environmental history.
Profile Image of Carolina Crimm
Carolina Castillo Crimm View biography
A retired professor of history, Dr. Caroline Castillo Crimm won many local and state-wide awards, including the prestigious Piper Award as one of the best teachers in Texas. Dedicated to Texas and Hispanic culture, her Spanish family came to Texas originally in 1792 although she was born and raised in Mexico City. The author of “De Leon: A Tejano Family History,” she has appeared on PBS and “The History Channel.”
Profile Image of Allen Hamilton
Allen Lee Hamilton View biography
Allen Lee Hamilton is a professor of Texas and American history at St. Philip’s College in San Antonio. The author of four books and 30+ articles in historical and popular journals, he has won three NISOD Awards from the University of Texas for Teaching Excellence. He completed his undergraduate and graduate work at the University of Texas at Arlington, and his doctoral work at the University of Oklahoma. Allen is a fourth generation Texan whose family has been in this great state since 1866.
Profile Image of Bill Perryman
Bill Perryman View biography
A fifth generation Texan and an award-winning teacher, Bill Perryman is known throughout Texas for his historical portrayals of heroic figures in Texas and American history and for his teacher trainings, seminars and educational explorations of historic San Antonio. He is the founder of History In Person Theater which is an official arts program for the Texas Commission on the Arts. Bill’s passion for history captivates audiences!
Profile Image of Diana Barrios
Diana Barrios View biography
Diana Barrios’ cooking-class techniques, spiced with warmth and wit, were honed during her years of weekly cooking segments on San Antonio morning television. Her local celebrity status resulted in guest cooking appearances on National TV shows as "Good Morning, America" and the Food Network. Encouraged by her new friend, Emeril Lagasse, Diana collected family recipes for the "Los Barrios Family Cookbook" that is sold nationally and for which Emeril wrote the forward.
Profile Image of Ken Erfurth
Ken Erfurth View biography
Ken Erfurth is a life-long resident of San Antonio whose interest in the region’s history, culture, and architecture began at an early age. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Houston and is a registered architect. He has been conducting educational adventures in San Antonio for various groups for over 20 years. In recent years, Ken has used photography to document the unique visual aspects of his native city and surrounding area. His images have been exhibited and published in multiple forums.
Profile Image of Mary Brennan
Mary Brennan View biography
Mary Brennan is dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Texas State University. She has exhaustively researched conservative politics in America and has penned a number of books related to the subject, including "Wives, Mothers, and the Red Menace" that evolved from her curiosity about Joe McCarthy’s wife, and "Pat Nixon: Embattled First Lady." Mary has appeared on numerous radio and TV shows, including CNN’s "The Sixties" and CSPAN's "First Ladies: Influence and Image."
Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop
You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.
As Texas Goes: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda
by Gail Collins
Gail Collins, the best-selling author and columnist for the New York Times, visited Texas and discovered that in Texas, where Bush, Cheney, Rove, & Perry had created a conservative political agenda that is now sweeping the country and defining our national identity. Through its vigorous support of banking deregulation, lax environmental standards, and draconian tax cuts, through its fierce championing of states rights, gun ownership, and, of course, sexual abstinence, Texas, with Governor Rick Perry’s presidential ambitions, has become the bellwether of a far-reaching national movement that continues to have profound social and economic consequences for us all. Like it or not, as Texas goes, so goes the nation.
Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Laws That Changed America
by Nick Kotz
Lyndon Baines Johnson and Martin Luther King, Jr., were thrust together in the aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Both men sensed a historic opportunity and began a delicate dance of accommodation that moved them, and the entire nation, toward the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Drawing on a wealth of newly available sources -- Johnson's taped telephone conversations, voluminous FBI wiretap logs, previously secret communications between the FBI and the president -- Nick Kotz gives us a dramatic narrative, rich in dialogue, that presents this momentous period with thrilling immediacy. Judgment Days offers needed perspective on a presidency too often linked solely to the tragedy of Vietnam.
Friedrichsburg: Colony of the German Furstenverein
by Friedrich Armand Strubberg and James C. Kearney
San Antonio Missions National Historical Park
by Louis Torres
Big, Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas
by Harrigan, Stephen
Written by a great story teller, this readable, monumental work is exactly what the title implies: a comprehensive history of Texas complete with wonderful historic photographs and a focus on the stories of individual people. Not for the fainthearted, the time invested in reading this is well-spent. Actually, the book is so readable that devouring it is a pleasure. It has been described as “a must read for Texas aficionados.”
Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream: The Most Revealing Portrait of a President and Presidential Power Ever Written
by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Widely praised and enormously popular, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream is a work of biography like few others. With uncanny insight and a richly engrossing style, the author renders LBJ in all his vibrant, conflicted humanity.
Crown Jewel of Texas, the Story of the San Antonio River
by Lewis Fisher
Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History
by S. C. Gwynne
S. C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches.
Texas, My Texas: Musings of the Rambling Boy
by Lonn Taylor
In a collection of essays about Texas gathered from his West Texas newspaper column, Lonn Taylor traverses the very best of Texas geography, Texas history, and Texas personalities. In a state so famous for its pride, Taylor manages to write a very honest, witty, and wise book about Texas past and Texas present.
Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth
by Burrough, Brian, Chris Tomlinson and Jason Stanford
Reviled by some and applauded by others, this controversial popular history focuses on factors related to the history of the Alamo. A saucy, journalistic-style read, it provides a perspective on how Texans think, information about the current redesign of Alamo Plaza, and a great bibliography for further study.
The Alamo Remembered, Tejano Accounts & Perspectives
by Timothy M. Matovina





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