Piney Woods of East Texas Region

Regional Highlights

Texas State Railroad, Palestine
Rose Gardens, Tyler
Caddo Lake, Uncertain
Antiques shopping and historic B&Bs, Jefferson

"There are a lot of jewels here and there," Howard Rosser, former executive director of the East Texas Tourism Association once told us. Those jewels are found all up and down the Texas-Louisiana border in small towns that offer luxurious bed-and-breakfast inns and loads of antiques shopping.

East Texas is an especially popular getaway during the fall. Here you can spend a weekend camping among a cushion of pine needles, enjoying small town festivals that celebrate the changing season, and cruising the countryside to see color displays.

Bordered on the north by Ross Perot's hometown of Texarkana; on the east by Texas's only natural lake, Caddo Lake, East Texas is a land of piney woods, antiques shops, and hallowed century-old neighborhoods.

If you're traveling west from Shreveport, Louisiana to Dallas on I-20, detour to Jefferson, an historic community often called the tourist capital of East Texas. This town lets visitors step back in time to the heyday of river travel. You'll discover that the woods lining the highway drap an antiques shopper's paradise. Marshall, where potters have been mining clay from East Texas's rolling hills for more than a century, turns out more than a million pots each year. In Rusk, ancient steamers of the Texas State Railroad Historic park take visitors on a 19th-century train ride.You may board in either Rusk or Palestine at one of the historic depots then take the memorable ride.

Spring is also a top time to visit East Texas thanks to the incredible rose crop of Tyler and the dogwood in Palestine.

Shopping find plenty of flea market opportunities in Canton during Trade Days or, for those looking for pottery, Marshall never disappoints.