HOW TO SPEND A GREAT WEEKEND IN GALVESTON, TEXAS: YOUR 48-HOUR ITINERARY

Everything you need to know to have an amazing weekend in Galveston, Texas

Galveston holds a special place in my heart because of a trip I took there with my family years ago. I was probably around 12 and just remember finding the food great, the downtown unique, and the seawall fascinating. While Andrew and I lived in Houston, we tried to go to Galveston fairly often because of all the reasons I mentioned previously. In this article, you’ll find a full 48-hour itinerary including where to go, things to do, and where to stay.

A little history of the iconic Galveston, Texas

Galveston has a fascinating past, from devastating storms to Civil War battles. Before the famous 1900 storm, Galveston was the second richest city per capita in the United States and was even dubbed the “Wall Street of the South” due to its flourishing banking industry and the retail success of The Strand. Among its many Texas “firsts” (over 100), it had Texas’ first bank and first post office! How cool is that? Learn all about Galveston’s past here.

Your 48-Hour Galveston Itinerary

DAY ONE

Grab lunch at Fish Tales

Right when we arrived in Galveston, we went straight to Fish Tales for lunch. Fish Tales is right across from the famous Pleasure Pier. FYI, you do park in the same lot for Pleasure Pier, but Fish Tales validates tickets at the hostess stand. We started with their Blue Hawaiian, which includes DeKuyper Blue Curaçao, vodka, rum, gin, pineapple juice, sweet & sour, and Sprite. I think there was even Nerds candy at the bottom! When we were there, it was actually Restaurant Week; this beloved culinary tradition features discounted prix fixe menus from dozens of Galveston’s best restaurants. Usually it’s very nice items for super affordable prices. For Restaurant Week, Fish Tales had a three-course meal. The first course was a fresh garden salad that was really good, especially with the special vinaigrette dressing. The second course was flounder roulades with beer-battered shrimp served with rice pilaf and veggies. It was delicious, but a lot of food for lunch, so make sure you’re hungry for most restaurant week stops. Finally, we finished with the bread pudding a la mode. Honestly, it was meh. It definitely tasted like it had been sitting out on a counter for a while, unfortunately. Next time, we will definitely just order from the regular menu, but we would visit again.

Head over to the Strand in historic Galveston

While in Galveston, you absolutely must visit The Strand. Galveston's main business street, famously known as The Strand, was dubbed the Wall Street of the Southwest due to the influx of port vessel traffic and the establishment of numerous financial institutions in the late 19th century. It was a street of opulent Victorian buildings, with five banks, wholesale houses, grocers, liquor and cigar dealers, cotton factors, commission merchants, insurance companies, printers and eight newspapers, dry goods companies, steam and sail ship agencies, auction houses, saloons, and sailor boarding houses. Galveston's Business prowess lasted until September of nineteen hundred; the great storm, also known as the 1900 Hurricane, destroyed the city and killed over 6,000 people. While you’re in Galveston, you’ll hear the great storm referred to often. The Strand was slowly deteriorating and being demolished for newer buildings and parking spaces until the 1970s and eighties. After a unified effort by community leaders, the Strand was revitalized to appeal to island-going tourists. The Strand and downtown Galveston are National Historic Landmarks and are now the heart of where tourists visit.

Pick up a little sweet treat at La King’s Confectionery

While walking along The Strand, you must pop into La King’s Confectionery and get some candy, ice cream, chocolate malt - you name it. The King family opened the shop on The Strand in 1976 and recreated an old-fashioned confectionery, but the family has been making candy since the 1920’s. How cool is that? La King’s Confectionery has every candy you could dream of, coffee, shakes, ice cream, malts, and more. Andrew and I ordered two chocolate malts, and they gave us the giant silver cups they make them in and the old-timey glasses to pour it into. Pro tip: get one malt and split it because so much malt was in one of the silver cups. We ended up with way too much. In addition, be sure to wander to the very back where the baskets of taffy are located. Sometimes you can see a demonstration of how it’s made, and if you’re lucky, they’ll throw you some freebies! Some of the machines they use to make it are over 100 years old, which is pretty awesome. It never fails that when we visit Galveston, we make a stop at La King’s.

Give yourself a fright in this old-school Haunted House

We were not planning on doing a haunted house while in Galveston, but the haunted house kinda found us while exploring The Strand. The tickets ended up being cheaper to do this old-school haunted house and the famous pirate adventure. I’m going to be honest, I was pretty nervous at first, then got over that pretty quickly. You start out watching a film that explains the history of Galveston and why the place you’re standing in is supposedly haunted. Once the film is completed, you’re guided into a room where the haunted adventure starts. The individual performing is very theatrical, like the old-style haunted houses, and did a great job! The haunted house is short, like most haunted houses, but really fun! Overall, we had a wonderful time going through it and would absolutely do it again with friends or family. Don’t expect it to be some amazing haunted house because it ultimately isn’t, but it’s definitely a good thrill and fun. The ticket for just the haunted house is $10 per person.

Pirates! Legends of the Gulf Coast

I’m going to be completely honest, Andrew and I thought this was going to be super cheesy and ridiculous but it was actually very informative. We learned A LOT about Jean Lafitte, the famous pirate who was known to spend time in Galveston and New Orleans. It was basically an entire museum on pirates. While you’re walking through the museum you’re given a sound wand that allows you to type in the numbers you find around the museum and listen and learn more about what’s in front of you and if you really pay attention you’ll find hidden letters that will help you spell out a saying! If you tell the pirates at the end what you spelled out, you’ll get some secret treasure! Tickets for this are $10 per person OR if you do the haunted house too the tickets for both are $13 per person. We were so happy we did these two experiences and are still talking about how much we loved it!

Check into your Galveston Beachfront Condo

A Stay Above The Rest were AMAZING hosts, and we would absolutely stay with them again. They go above and beyond with decor and provide everything you could possibly need for kitchen appliances and bathroom essentials. I mean, look at that KitchenAid mixer. I’m such a sucker for a KitchenAid mixer and love mine back home. Okay... that may have been what drew me to the place. I believe all their condos have different colored KitchenAids to match the various decor. Ugh, so cute!

Rudy & Paco’s

Andrew and I wanted to celebrate at a nice restaurant and a friend recommended Rudy & Paco’s and y’all… it didn’t disappoint. It was SO good. The menu was huge so decided what to order was a task but we ended up with the Pollo Carmelo, grilled chicken breast in a white wine lemon butter with capers and basil, topped with goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes, and the Bone-In Ribeye. Both dishes were served with scalloped potatoes and brussel sprouts. We ended the evening with a slice of key lime pie and coffee. Overall our experience was FABULOUS. We made reservations and I’m glad we did! The place is very small and was packed. We even had to wait a bit for our table. I believe a couple of people behind us were able to get tables eventually without reservations but honestly, I wouldn’t risk it. It’s so easy to make reservations these days, like why not?! While we were waiting we were looking at all the photos on the walls by the host stand and of Paco and celebrities when all of a sudden Paco is telling us to follow him to our table! He sat us and was extremely sweet. I thought it was so cool we were able to see THE Paco!

The Spot

We ended up at The Spot on Thursday night for a burger and man was it good, but let’s talk about the really cool part about this place. It’s actually 5 different places all rolled up in one. There is a restaurant, an ice cream shop, and 3 different bars: Squeeze Ritas & Tequilas, RumShack and SideYard. The entire place looks like a cool tiki bar too, which really got us into the island mood right away. We ate our burgers then headed upstairs to the RumShack for piña coladas. I had the strawberry one that basically tasted like a Miami vice, which was delicious and Andrew had the original piña colada. Be warned, they are HELLA sweet and next time I go I will definitely be getting something else haha. The Spot is a wonderful place for a get together with friends or family to sit and stay a while.

DAY TWO

Watch the sunrise on the balcony

The balcony was definitely our favorite place to chill. We got up early to watch the sunrise over the ocean, and it was just stunning. Whenever we came back to the condo to hang out and chill for a bit, we would always have the balcony door open or be sitting out there.

Enjoy some time at the beach

The beach right across from our condo off 61st was nice. We spent a decent amount of time over there just chilling and enjoying the beach life. The water was freezing because hello February weather! Even though the water was ice cold in February, it was nice to just sit on the sand and listen to the ocean waves roll in. There’s something about the sound of the ocean that will never get old. It just makes me so happy and content — I’m absolutely going to live by the ocean one day.

Grab a delicious brunch at The BLVD

Brunch is basically my middle name so we checked out the different places around the island that had great reviews online for brunch and ended up at The BLVD because of it’s insane amount of great reviews. The aesthetic was on point. It was like a chic diner feel right when we walked in. Andrew and I started with mimosas and the strawberry, feta & spiced pecan salad with fig sugarcane vinaigrette and a cup of the shrimp, crab & andouille sausage gumbo. This salad was basically the salad of my dreams and I was all but licking the plate clean when it was gone. Andrew had the gumbo and just said “it was good.” haha! For our main course, I had the Caribbean tacos which included: jerk shrimp, Caribbean salsa, red bell pepper sauce, and greens and Andrew had the peanut butter jalapeño sliders, which included: 100% angus beef, Monterrey jack cheese + applewood smoke bacon + jalapeños + peanut butter… Yes. I said peanut butter. Before you make the ick face… it was actually DELICIOUS. Overall the food was great and the service was amazing!

Head over to the iconic Pleasure Pier

Pleasure Pier is a staple in Galveston! If you’re not familiar, it’s an awesome and historic theme park right on the pier. Learn all about the history of the pier here. It has a pretty cool history I didn’t even know about, but Pleasure Pier isn’t just a history lesson.. it’s WAY more! Ever imagine riding a roller coaster over the ocean?? Well, you can and MORE at Pleasure Pier. See the full list of rides here. There’s definitely something for everyone. Andrew and I even enjoyed our time sitting at the end of the pier on these beautiful rocking chairs that overlooked the ocean AND of course hit up the concession stand to grab ourselves some good ole fair food. Andrew had the churro bites with swirl ice cream and I had fried Oreos, my favorite!

We ended up staying for a while and had the opportunity to watch the gorgeous sunset over the ocean. It’s unquestionably the best place to watch the sun set. See the view in my video below!

Get some appetizers and drinks at Fisherman's Wharf

Mario’s Pizza

For our last dinner in Galveston, we decided to have a picnic on the beach with some pizza. We weren’t sure where to go but as we were driving around the island looking at houses, we drove by a places called Mario’s Pizza. Their slogan had as dying laughing, “We speak very little English, but… we make the best pizza!”I immediately looked up the history of the restaurant, which you can read here, and fell in love with the place. We placed an order online and headed to the beach to wait for our pizza to be made. It was SO windy while we were walking along the beach that no way in hell we would be able to enjoy our pizza on the beach so we decided to eat our pizza on the couch of our cute Airbnb and watch Netflix! Andrew’s half of the pizza was pepperoni and Jalapeño and my half was the Bella Franca which is Aritchoke Hearts, Bell Pepper, Black Olives, Garlic, Mozzarella Cheese, Mushrooms, Olive Oil and Onions. The pizza was freaking delicious!! I highly recommend Mario’s!

Experience a Galveston Ghost Tour

Andrew and I love to go on ghost tours and we had actually looked up the ones in Galveston one night while we were in Houston. We had decided we really wanted to go on one when we visit Galveston next, so that’s exactly what we did. Dash Beardsley, the founder of the Ghost Tours of Galveston is pretty epic! Andrew and I were dying looking at his website getting super excited to go on the tour but we didn’t know which one to choose. They have three different ones, one on the Strand, one in a cemetery, and one that’s the sequel to the original Strand tour. So…. we decided to give them a call and freaking Dash Beardsley answered the phone!! Andrew and I were definitely fan-girling a little bit. Unfortunately he broke his leg and wasn’t going to be giving the tour, but we decided to go on it anyway. The tour was about 2.5 hours long and full of history! Unfortunately, the tour guide who was replacing Dash was average. We stood for 45 minutes in the original meet up area just talking about the history of Galveston when typically you’re moving around a bit in the beginning of ghost tours. It didn’t help that it was super cold and windy, but overall, I give the experience a solid B. When Dash heals up, we’ll def be back to go on the tour with him though and I’ll update this post!

DAY THREE

Grab a coffee at Sugar Bean Coffee

Hang out in the area at the back of the shopping center

Spend your last day starting with brunch at Hearsay on the Strand

Hearsay is a very cute little spot for brunch right on The Strand. Andrew and I read about them online and knew we wanted to go there for Sunday brunch and mimosas, of course! They were having the special Galveston Restaurant week dishes as well and they did not disappoint. We started with the sweet and spicy candied bacon served with blue cheese and a maple bourbon dipping sauce and the deviled eggs with chives and bacon. For our main dish we had the bananas foster waffle and the quiche lorraine. I’m already a huge fan of quiche and this one was delightful. It was filled with Prosciutto, Gruyère, spinach, and shallots and seriously has me drooling just thinking about it again. The was basically a freaking dessert. It was a candied pecan waffle, with caramelized bananas, & a bourbon syrup. I can’t wait to go back for brunch when we visit next.

Enjoy a day at the beach one last time

Walk across the road and enjoy some food at Gaidos

Other things to do in Galveston

Moody Gardens

Mardi Gras in Galveston

Overall, we had a wonderful time in Galveston celebrating our 2-year anniversary! I highly recommend going during the off-season when it’s not extremely hot and crowded. We didn’t have to wait at any of the restaurants we tried, nor did the beaches or Strand feel overly crowded with people. Have you been to Galveston before?? Where are some of your favorite places there? I’d love to know!

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