What To Do In Waco

We love Waco and we know that you will too.  Visitors are always asking us “What can I do in Waco? What are some local Waco restaurants we can eat at? What are the best things to do in Waco and the best shopping in Waco?” So we’ve created these lists just for you. These are just a few of our opinions. No scientific research was used. We know there are many more great places to go in Waco and great places to eat in Waco, these are just some of our favorites. We hope you will enjoy them as much as we do. If you visit any of these places, let us know your thoughts and let them know where you heard of them!

The picture at the top of this page is of the tallest building in town which is the Alico in Waco in downtown Waco. Behind it you see the Brazos River with the Waco Suspension Bridge crossing it. Between the Alico building and the river is the Waco Convention Center, the historic Waco City Hall and the Waco Hilton. Off to the right is the Spice Village Waco which is a local collection of shops and boutiques and the Waco Tours office. In the foreground of this picture, up Austin Avenue is the Waco Hippodrome which is a fun place with nightly entertainment like movies, concerts, plays and the works.

One of the amazing features that Waco has is a gorgeous lake in the middle of town. The original Lake Waco dam was built in 1930 and went across about in the middle of the present lake. It started about where Koehne Park is now and you could drive across the old dam in your car.  Today you can still go to the north part of Koehne Park and find where the road goes off into the lake. That is the road that was over the old dam.  In the early 1960’s they build the dam where it is now. The story goes that they did not completely finish tearing down the old dam before they got several big rains that filled up the lake and they had to leave it like it is. (That was one of the local stories) You can still find where the dam went across the lake if you have a depth finder on your boat. There are spots along that area that are good fishing just like by the new dam. While you are at Lake Waco, go watch the sunset at Midway Park and then drive over the “twin bridges” that go over the lake.  At the other end of the lake is the present dam which has the Waco Dam Trail over the top of the dam. When they are letting out water from the spillway it will be so worth your time to go watch that. At the Bosque Spillway Park you can stand right next to the enormous amount of water they let out. These perspectives are very unusually for any town.

We all know that one of the fun things to do in Waco is to go to one of the many local restaurants. We take great pride in the one of a kind eating spots around Waco. We have included several lists of our favorite Waco restaurants to choose from. There is a list of local Waco BBQ restaurants, local Waco Tex-Mex restaurants, and local Waco hamburger restaurants on this site. Stay tuned for other list to come.

If you have some time in Waco, go to the Suspension Bridge in downtown Waco. You can do some research on the incredible history of this bridge. When you are there, make sure and go on the River Walk that goes under the bridge. Directly under the west side of the bridge is a spring that flows out of the rock wall under the bridge. It flows down the rocks and under the river walk. It is a rather large amount of water coming from a spring and this is Indian Spring which is the name of the park that is next to the Suspension Bridge. If this spring could talk, there would be a lot of interesting stories from Indians, settlers, and others. Look at the original bricks that were used to build the bridge! When you go up on top of the Suspension Bridge, there is an old railroad bridge support that is left in the river to the north side. The locals often will come and try to throw tortillas on top of that abandon piers. (Don’t tell them I told you about that) You can now walk over to the east side and in the north direction there is a nice new memorial to Dorris Miller. He was a naval hero who served in Pearl Harbor that has a great story of his heroic service on that day.