Things to do in Dallas

Nightlife · East of downtown

The city's live music district since the 1920s blues era, now a dense grid of venues, murals and late bars.

Local tip: The murals along Main and Elm change constantly and are the reason to walk it in daylight. At night, park in a paid lot rather than on the street — the neighbourhood is fine, the towing is not.

Landmark · Between downtown and Uptown

A five-acre deck park built on a bridge over the sunken Woodall Rodgers Freeway, stitching two districts back together.

Local tip: It is the clearest illustration of what Dallas is trying to do about its freeways. Come on a weekday lunchtime for the food trucks; the free programming — chess, yoga, films — is genuinely good and almost entirely used by locals.

Neighborhood · Oak Cliff, south of the Trinity

A walkable few blocks of independent restaurants, bars and shops in a historically Latino neighbourhood south of the river.

Local tip: Oak Cliff is the part of Dallas that most surprises newcomers who have only seen the northern suburbs. Take the streetcar from Union Station rather than driving — it is free and it crosses the Houston Street Viaduct with the best skyline view in the city.

Culture · South-east of downtown

277 acres holding the largest collection of 1930s Art Deco exposition architecture anywhere in the world, plus the State Fair each autumn.

Local tip: Everyone comes for the fair in September and October and nobody comes the rest of the year, which is when the architecture is actually visible. The Hall of State and the Esplanade are extraordinary and usually empty.

Nature · East Dallas and Uptown

A 1,015-acre lake with a nine-mile loop trail, and a separate rail-trail running from downtown through Uptown.

Local tip: The lake loop is where Dallas runs and cycles, and it is busiest at dawn in summer for good reason. The Dallas Arboretum sits on the east shore — go in the last week of February when the tulips are out and before the crowds arrive.

Nature · South Dallas, 20 minutes from downtown

A 6,000-acre bottomland hardwood forest inside the city limits — one of the largest urban hardwood forests in the United States — with a nature centre built on a former illegal dump.

Local tip: Almost no newcomer knows this exists, because Dallas's reputation is concrete and the forest is on the wrong side of the river from the money. Trails, herons, bobcats and beavers, twenty minutes from downtown, and quiet on a Saturday morning.