Explore Bastrop, TX: A Local's Guide to Bastrop County
State parks, the Lost Pines, a downtown that hasn't been mall-ified, and ten small towns most people drive past on the way to somewhere else.
This isn't a tourism brochure. I live in Bastrop. I run a small web studio here, and most of my clients are businesses scattered across Bastrop County: the BBQ joints, the antique shops, the contractors, the folks on Main Street. So when people search "things to do in Bastrop, TX" and land on a page written by someone in a coworking space in Round Rock, that's annoying. This page is what I'd actually tell a friend visiting for the weekend, plus some pointers if you're poking around the smaller towns out here.
The bridge, the river, the pines
Most people first cross the Colorado River on the way to Bastrop State Park. Stop on the way back and walk along the bank. You'll get more out of the trip than the highway view.
What to Do in Bastrop, TX
Outdoor & State Parks
The Lost Pines are the reason a lot of people end up out here in the first place. A strange little island of loblolly pines about a hundred miles from where pines are supposed to grow. Bastrop State Park and Buescher State Park are connected by Park Road 1C, one of the better drives in the area. Add McKinney Roughs Nature Park for trails along the bluffs, and the Colorado River itself if you want to paddle.
Historic Downtown Bastrop
Main Street in Bastrop hasn't been bulldozed and replaced with a strip mall, which is increasingly rare in this part of Texas. The Bastrop Opera House still hosts shows. The Bastrop County Historical Society Museum is small but worth twenty minutes. The rest is antique shops, local boutiques, a few bars, and architecture that goes back to the 1800s. Walk it on foot.
Eat & Drink
You can find good BBQ, decent Tex-Mex, and a couple of breweries without leaving Bastrop County. I'm not going to rank places. That's a fast way to start an argument and an even faster way to make a guide that's wrong in six months. Ask whoever's working the counter at your hotel or Airbnb. They'll tell you the truth.
Day Trips Around Bastrop County
Half the appeal of Bastrop is that the towns around it are also worth a stop. Smithville has the film history and a downtown packed with antique shops. Elgin is sausage country, and has been for over a century. McDade, Paige, Rosanky, Red Rock. All small, all quiet, all with their own thing going on. See the locations grid below.
Industrial History & The Old Iron Works
The Old Iron Works site is part of Bastrop's industrial backstory, the kind of thing most visitors miss because nobody puts it on a top-ten list. Pair it with a walk along the river and you've got a slower, weirder afternoon than the usual loop.
Events Worth Knowing About
A few annual events shape the local calendar. The Bastrop Homecoming Rodeo in summer. Lost Pines Christmas in December. Bastrop goes hard for it. The McDade Watermelon Festival. The Smithville Jamboree. Dates shift; check before you drive out.
Bastrop in Pictures
Where in Bastrop County?
Bastrop County is bigger than just the city of Bastrop. Each town below has its own page covering what local businesses look like on the ground.
Bastrop
The county seat. Historic downtown, state parks, the river.
View services →Smithville
Film history, antiques, and one of the prettiest small downtowns in Central Texas.
View services →Elgin
Sausage capital. Brick streets. Quietly growing on the 290 corridor.
View services →Cedar Creek
The fast-growing strip between Bastrop and Austin on Hwy 71.
View services →Del Valle
The western edge near ABIA and the Circuit of the Americas.
View services →Mustang Ridge
Small town off SH 130, easy to overlook, easy to live in.
View services →McDade
Tiny, historic, home to the Watermelon Festival.
View services →Paige
Wide-open, rural, on Highway 290 between Bastrop and Giddings.
View services →Red Rock
Farmland and ranches in southern Bastrop County.
View services →Rosanky
Country roads and the Central Texas Museum of Automotive History.
View services →Running a Business in Bastrop County?
If you live out here, you already know all of this. And you already know that someone in Bastrop County does not need a website built by a stranger in Austin who's never crossed the Colorado River for anything other than F1 weekend. Your site should sound like someone who's been on the trails, eaten at the BBQ joint, and knows which town is which.
See how I work with local businesses →