Region: Buchanan Dam
Buchanan Dam
Where Living is Easy on the Lake
Find Great Places to Stay, Eat, Play & More in the Buchanan Dam Area
You’ll have to experience it for yourself, but we warn you, it’s addictive. Each season is spectacular.
Buchanan Dam is a small resort and retirement community that grew out of the construction site for the dam which created Lake Buchanan.
It has become a popular center for tourism on and around both Lake Buchanan and Inks Lake.
The hydro-electric dam itself is a marvel of 1930’s technology, still the longest multiple-arch dam in America (over 2 miles long).
Buchanan Dam is also home to the Buchanan Arts and Crafts Guild and Gallery-the oldest member-owned art co-op in Texas.
The Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery is down the road, as is Inks Lake State Park, the Highland Lakes Golf Club, and Longhorn Cavern State Park.
There are many nearby lodges, resorts, RV/camping parks, cabins/cottages and waterfront rental homes as well as shopping, dining and wedding locations.
Minimum development characterizes the Hill Country State Natural Area, a 5,369-acre park in the heart of the Texas Hill Country. Primitive camping is permitted in a 20-acre designated site. Horseback riding, backpacking, and hiking are popular activities. It is located on F.M. 1077, at 10600 Bandera Creek Rd, 10 miles west of town.
Whether you call them Dude or Guest Ranches, Bandera has plenty. Some are rustic. Others are equipped with all the modern conveniences.
Walking or driving tours of are available. See the original jail and County Courthouse and some of the oldest buildings in Bandera County along historic Eleventh St. Also, you can watch saddle makers and blacksmiths. You can also tour a working Longhorn ranch. Information on self-guided tours can be picked up at the Bandera Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Scenic Drives – There are beautiful Hill Country landscapes in almost any direction. Texas Monthly ranks the drive from Medina to Leakey on Ranch-to-Market Road 337 as 18th in an article titled “75 Things We Love About Texas”. Many folks rate this area as the most beautiful drive in Texas.
Texas 173 North winds through scenic vistas to Camp Verde and Kerrville. Texas 173 South rolls to the southern edge of the hills and enters the lower South Texas Plains. Texas 46 East explores steep-shouldered scenery through community of Pipe Creek to the German-accented town of Boerne. Texas 16 and F.M. 470 West is one of the most dramatic. Blue hills enfold small green valleys threaded by sparkling creeks.
Hill Country Day Trippin’
There’s plenty of opportunities for day trips from the Buchanan Dam area.
Enjoy a relaxing drive through the spectacular Texas Hill Country on wide-open roads lined with breath-taking flowers and trees. Relish views only available in the Hill Country. You’ll feel like you’re light years away from a crowded freeway…because you are.
And, you won’t have to pick up and move. No packing and unpacking. While based in Buchanan Dam, you can stay as long as you want and experience an abundance of places to go and things to see and do.
Here are a couple of the possibilities:
