Fredericksburg is the perfect not-too-far-away getaway destination for Houstonians!
At just over 260 miles away, you can get a solid weekend trip with the family squeezed in with ease. Take a break from the hustle and bustle, sip some wine and take in the quiet beauty!
Last month, a few of my best girlfriends and I headed to Fredericksburg for a getaway. Most of us had never been, and those who had visited almost a decade ago. Let me tell you, a lot has changed in the Texas Hill Country Wine region.
Fredericksburg is adorably charming. The wine is fantastic. The wine tours are plentiful. The restaurants are great. The people are friendly. The shopping is fun. {Covid-19 Note: Most places are back up and running, but it is handy to have a clean mask if needed}.
Stay
Where to stay is likely going to be your first consideration upon deciding on a Fredericksburg getaway. My friends and I were interested in renting a cute house, so we combed through options on Airbnb and Vrbo.
Most would recommend staying close to Main Street in Fredericksburg, but we opted for Das Steinhaus, which was a country house with a pool out on Luckenbach Road. It was the middle of summer, so we thought we would need it. News flash: We never used the pool. We were gone all day, every day. It was still an amazing rental, and we did use the hot tub two out of three nights.
Lucky for you, there are a lot more places with hot tubs and/or fire pits. And if you’re not traveling with a larger group of people, there are heaps of adorable cottages in town. Here are a few helpful sites for booking accommodations: Absolute Charm, Airbnb, Heavenly Hosts, Vacasa, and Vrbo. If you notice on one of the bigger vacation rental search engines that a house is managed by a local agency such as Absolute Charm or Heavenly Hosts, you will likely get the best deal by booking directly with them.
Additionally, the traditional booking sites for hotels will also have an abundance of places to stay: Booking.com, Expedia, Kayak, Priceline, Travelocity, etc. It is usually best to book directly with the hotel you are staying at, but these sites give you a good grasp of what is locally available, and sometimes they have better rates.
Eat
Meals are always my favorite to plan, so I took over this facet of our planning. In addition to seeking out friends’ and other Houston Moms contributors’ recommendations for “all things Fredericksburg,” I ran a few searches of my own and checked out menus in advance of planning.
A few of the wineries also have full service restaurants {usually only open on weekends or closing very early on weekdays}, but some require you to be a member of their wine club to dine there. Others insist that you pre-pay for your meal, and while that is not a deal breaker per se, you do need to be very certain that you want to dine there.
We ate at and enjoyed the following: Cabernet Grill, Navajo Grill, Pritzer Sweet Shop, and Hondo’s on Main. Hondo’s on Main also has live music Wednesday-Sunday.
If you’re lucky enough to visit during peach season, I highly recommend stopping at one of the local orchards for Fredericksburg Peaches. We convinced our wine tour guide to stop at an orchard on the way home, and we all got peach ice cream cones. No regrets.
Drink
There are so many wonderful wineries in Texas Hill Country Wine Country. In addition to wineries, there are also several distilleries and breweries to visit. It is impossible to visit them all in one trip, so you will need to get recommendations and also know what type of wines you like most. This Texas Wine Trail listing provides names and contact information for more than 60 wineries.
Conveniently, a few of the wineries have tasting rooms in downtown Fredericksburg. Though my friends and I do not like sweet wines, the Fat Ass Ranch and Winery Main Street Tasting Room provided frozen Sangria in go cups for $10/ea. We had two or three before our spa appointments. Other wineries with downtown tasting rooms include Grape Creek, Becker Vineyards, Lost Draw Cellars, Cross Mountain Vineyards, and more.
On our wine tour, we were able to visit William Chris Vineyards, French Connection Wines, and Ab Astris Winery. We would have also liked to visit Grape Creek Vineyards and Heath Sparkling Wines, but we did not have a chance to do so. Lucky for us, the owner of our rental gifted us a bottle of Heath Sparkling Blanc de Blancs. It was delicious! We were quite sad when the bottle was empty.
Fredericksburg Wine Tour Operators
There are many, and I highly recommend booking a driver or a wine tour unless you have a very committed designated driver. The upside of booking a wine tour? They do all the planning. Some costs include tasting fees, which it seems every winery charges, and some do not. We chose to go the “all inclusive” route with Cellar Rat Wine Tours. Our guide, Clint, was fantastic… even if I started calling him Chris by the end of the day.
Other wine tour operators include: Absolute Charm Wine Tours, Fredericksburg Cable Car Wine Tours, George’s 290 Wine Tours, Majesty Tours, Texas Wine Tours, Uncorked Wine Tours, and Yellow Rose of Texas Wine Tours.
If hop on / hop off is more your style, the 290 Wine Shuttle will have you covered, though you won’t get to stop in to any places off the beaten path.
Shop
Main Street in downtown Fredericksburg is full of adorable boutiques and restaurants. Some are definitely more high end than others, but you could spend hours if not days popping in and out of all of the local shops. Beware that the stores do not have public restrooms, but there are several located close to the shopping area.
For general groceries and supplies needed for your stay, Fredericksburg conveniently has an H-E-B and Walmart.
Luckenbach Texas conveniently has a storefront on Main Street, but I would encourage you to take the drive out to the original dance hall and general store; It’s only fifteen minutes outside of town. The people working there couldn’t be friendlier, and there is often live music.
Have you been to Fredericksburg, Texas already? If so, what did you love about it?
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