Dallas

DALLASSTARTER

Dealey Plaza at Opening

≈ 2,500 steps1.2 mi · about 2 hoursStarter · 3 stops · 500 credStart where you live.

Three stops across the west end of downtown, walked early while the plaza is still quiet. About a mile and a half of pavement, two hours, nothing to pay at any of them: the triangle where the motorcade turned, a herd of bronze longhorns coming down a limestone ridge, and a block of lawn where a parking lot used to be.

DALLASSTARTER

First Light on White Rock

≈ 10,000 steps4.8 mi · about 2.5 hoursStarter · 3 stops · 500 credStart where you live.

Three points around a lake the city drinks from no longer, done at sunrise with short hops between them by bike or car. Two and a half hours, nothing to pay: a grass bluff on the east shore, the spillway of a 1911 dam, and an Art Deco bathhouse on the north end.

DALLASSTARTER

The Arts District on Foot

≈ 1,600 steps0.8 mi · about 2 hoursStarter · 3 stops · 500 credStart where you live.

Two hours and about a mile on the north edge of downtown, all of it free: a park built as a lid over a sunken freeway, a brick cathedral with one of the biggest congregations in the country, and a park that was a parking lot until 2019.

DALLASSTANDARD

Deep Ellum, Elm to the Market

≈ 6,000 steps2.8 mi · about 4 hoursStandard · 5 stops · 600 credOne trip earns it.

Half a day east of downtown on foot, best begun late afternoon so the last stop lands when the music rooms open. Five free stops: three of them street art, one a produce shed that only fills up at weekends, one a building by a Mexican architect who painted it hot pink.

DALLASSTANDARD

Fair Park in Art Deco

≈ 2,500 steps1.2 mi · about 4 hoursStandard · 5 stops · 600 credOne trip earns it.

Half a day inside the largest collection of 1936 exposition architecture left standing anywhere. Four of the five stops are free open park; the fifth is a walled garden that charges at its own gate. One warning: during the State Fair, from the last Friday of September to the third Sunday of October, you pay to get into Fair Park at all, so come outside those weeks or budget for it.

DALLASSTANDARD

Oak Cliff, Jefferson to Winnetka

≈ 4,000 steps + 2.9 mi by car1.9 mi on foot · about 4 hoursStandard · 5 stops · 600 credOne trip earns it.

Half a day across the far side of the Trinity, where Dallas keeps its oldest streetcar suburb and its oldest Black neighbourhood. Five free stops, some walking and a couple of short hops: two theatre marquees, a spring-fed park, a shopping block and a freedman's town that is still somebody's street.

DALLASSTANDARD

Turtle Creek and the Katy Trail

≈ 9,000 steps4.2 mi · about 4 hoursStandard · 5 stops · 600 credOne trip earns it.

Half a day north of downtown along a creek and an old railway bed, mostly under trees and all of it free. Five stops: a rail trail, two of the city's oldest parks, a corner monument this neighbourhood gathers at, and a burial ground a freeway was driven through.

DALLASADVANCED

Downtown from the River Up

≈ 9,500 steps4.5 mi · a full dayAdvanced · 8 stops · 800 credGetting there is not the hard part.

A full day on foot, starting on a 1931 viaduct over the floodway and finishing in a walled garden in the Arts District. Eight stops, seven of them free open ground; the last one is behind a gate and charges at the door. Roughly four miles of downtown pavement with no shade to speak of, so carry water.

DALLASADVANCED

The Long Way Round

152 mi by car2 days or more · + the walk in to 3 stopsAdvanced III · 11 stops · 800 credGetting there is not the hard part.

The hardest thing this city holds: two long days and a lot of driving, from the escarpment on the southwest edge to a prairie ranch north of Plano, taking in the bottomland forest the Trinity built and the towns the metroplex swallowed. Eleven stops. Six are free, five sit behind a gate, and each one says so in its own line.

DALLASADVANCED

West to Cowtown

≈ 5,500 steps + 36 mi by car2.6 mi on foot · 1 day or moreAdvanced II · 9 stops · 800 credGetting there is not the hard part.

Two days and a car, and honestly this one leaves Dallas: one stop in Irving and eight in Fort Worth, about 50 km west. That is where the cattle pens, the Kahn and the Johnson water garden are, and no honest Dallas set can pretend otherwise. Eight stops are free ground; the last is a gated garden with a charge at the entrance.