Interactive Dallas Travel Guide

Dallas is the Texas city that quietly built a world-class arts district while no one was looking — a 20-block stretch of Foster, Koolhaas, I.M. Pei and Renzo Piano sitting inside one of the most sprawling US metros. The trick is to pick a few neighbourhoods and travel between them rather than try to see it all. Dallas runs on air-conditioning in summer and patios in shoulder seasons: coffee at Houndstooth, the Nasher and Disney Concert Hall's Texas cousins in the cool of the morning, BBQ at Pecan Lodge, an afternoon across the Trinity in Bishop Arts, sunset on the Joule rooftop, dinner at Tei-An or Uchi, late drinks somewhere in Deep Ellum where the bars run later than the rest of the city. You'll drive — Dallas is more car-led than LA — but DART's Orange Line runs to DFW, the Red and Blue lines cross the Arts District, and the free M-Line streetcar makes its slow vintage loop through Uptown. October is the prize, the State Fair runs at Fair Park, and August is the warning — don't come in August if you can help it. The Arts District sits a five-minute walk from Klyde Warren Park; the Park decks the freeway across to Uptown; Deep Ellum sits one DART stop east of downtown; Bishop Arts sits a ten-minute drive across the Trinity — four neighbourhoods and the freeways and four DART lines binding the whole sprawling metro together.

Antipode's interactive Dallas travel guide is built around that idea — pick the neighbourhoods and travel between them. Explore Dallas by neighbourhood, from the Arts District's starchitect cluster (Foster + Partners' Winspear Opera House, Rem Koolhaas and REX's Wyly Theatre, I.M. Pei's Meyerson Symphony Center, Renzo Piano's Nasher Sculpture Center, Thom Mayne/Morphosis's Perot Museum) to Deep Ellum's murals and blues history, Bishop Arts boutiques across the Trinity in Oak Cliff, Knox-Henderson's design retail and restaurants, the Design District and Trinity Groves food scene, and Uptown's vintage M-Line streetcar. Choose between DFW — the massive five-terminal international hub between Dallas and Fort Worth, accessible by DART's Orange Line — and the much closer, faster Love Field, Southwest's home airport just 10 minutes from downtown that locals quietly prefer for domestic flights. Visualise the four DART lines that matter: the Red and Blue through the Arts District, the Green to Deep Ellum and Fair Park, the Orange to DFW. Follow curated routes through a starchitect architecture day, a Deep Ellum music-and-mural afternoon, a slow Bishop Arts boutique-and-restaurant loop across the river, and a Dallas night from the Joule rooftop to a late Deep Ellum bar — from bluebonnet spring through brutal August heat to crystal-clear State Fair October and the unpredictable Texas winter. Tap any neighbourhood, station or season and the city moves with you — built for design-led travellers, returning Texans and anyone planning a first trip to the Metroplex.