Envision Houston Region

Houston, Texas is a leader when it comes to business, entertainment and the arts. As the fourth largest city in the US, the city needs to live up to its mega-standing. If you’re a tourist and plans to visit this big metropolis, below are just some of the things that you should know about Houston city.

Houston, as previously mentioned, is a very big city. It encompasses a land area of nearly 600 miles. With this size, it is able to fit in cities like New York, Minneapolis Washington, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle and Boston into its area. Also because of its large land area, it’s not surprising that it becomes the 4^th populous cities in the US and trails after populated areas like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

Exploring Houston is an affordable adventure as it is listed as part of the top 5 of Budget Travel’s annual list of budget destinations. You can get a cityPASS in Houston for only $39 whereas in New York, the cityPASS would cost you for 79 bucks. The cityPASS provides you access to major attractions such as the Space Center Houston, the Houston Zoo and the Houston Museum of Natural Science among the few.

There are also free things that you can do in this city. Around ten museums in the Houston Museum District are free for public access. The remainder may have entrance fees but the Children’s Museum of Houston and the Museum of Fine Arts offer certain free entrances each week.

The best time to visit Houston is in spring and fall as the temperatures are more favorable. Summer can be intense and can be too hot or too humid. Winter is fairly temperate in Houston city.

Houston is the largest city in the State of Texas. This place is huge that it even made it to fourth place in the largest cities in the whole US. There is an estimated 2.2 million population in Houston City alone in 2009. This city is home to around 20 of Fortune 500 companies which include businesses like the ConocoPhillips, Marathon Oil, Sysco, Halliburton, Continental Airlines, Apache and FMC Technologies. The economy of Houston is dependent around energy, aerospace, technology and medicine.

Things connected to aerospace is a major attraction in Houston as it is the where the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center and the NASA’s Mission Control are located. The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center is the space flight training ground of the US astronauts while the NASA’s Mission Control is responsible for manning the space missions.

Apart from the aerospace attractions, there are also around 337 parks in the Houston area which include the Hermann Park, Sam Houston Park and the Lake Houston Park among the few. Other attractions in this city include the Splash Town Waterpark Houston, the Galleria shopping mall and the Lee and Joe Jamail Skatepark.

When it comes to healthcare, Houston is the seat of the Texas Medical Center, the largest medical center in the world. Education is also great in this city as there are four major state universities found in here and more than 300 private schools abound. If you think about sports, Houston has the NBA team of Houston Rockets and NFL team of Houston Texas.