For those that live in Texas
 

I'm retiring in early 2020, and before I die, I'd like to go to Houston and see the space museum. I've always been fascinated with anything related to space. My wife and I area deciding to either drive from the Sacramento area, or we may decide to fly to Houston depending which way is cheaper. I'm retiring in the last week of February or March. I'll be 65 in May. Questions:

1) Best time in the year to go
2) Other things to see around Houston or other places in Texas
3) Best places to stay (i.e. hotel etc.)

Any other info would be great.

End of November to about St Paddie's day for timing so you won't be miserably hot.
Can't help with the rest tho.

Kennedy space center was VERY interesting many years ago when I first came here to Florida......saw it like 21? years ago.....with my kids, and saw one of the last Shuttle launches.....seen the moon rocket on it's side all apart ...plumbers nitemare.....

Here are a couple places to check out... :leaving:

I've been to many air/space museums. Houston is ok. Much better, imho, are Dayton, Kennedy, and the mother of all air/space museums Udvar Hazy near Dulles airport in VA.

Don't know if you're looking for something specific, so I can't judge for you.

First off, congrats on retiring!

I agree with above if you haven’t done KSC in Florida, I’d prioritize that first. Besides the swimming pool I don’t think Houston has anything that KSC doesn’t have better.
Heck I’d do the Dulles Air and space museum, Smithsonian, and Ohio’s air and space museum in Dayton before I made a special trip to Houston for Johnson’s Space Center. I grew up around KSC, their visitor center is top notch, what they have at Johnson is smaller and seemingly needing more repair.

Feb through April is a fantastic time to be here, or wait till late October/November.

If you come in early March we have the Houston Rodeo running for 3 weeks.
We have some excellent museums in our museum district including the most expensive dinosaur collection in the world if I’m not mistaken.

If you’re jut looking to just hit up Johnson, fly into Hobby, and stay in that area or down towards Galveston, you may be able to avoid coming into Houston all together. If you do need to come into Houston, avoid rush hour.

Best of luck!

Having lived in Houston since 1963, this is great advice.

Well, so much for MY antique memory, as I forgot about the Dulles/Smithsonian place, only been maybe 25 years since I seen it......but YES, you go there, and see some flying machines alright......as you walk in, see two of them staring you right in the face.... 1:1 scale.......:seasix::hurray:

If it’s been 25 years then you haven’t been to the Dulles facility. The Garber facility where they used to store and restore aircraft basically expanded into a new and beautiful facility at the Dulles airport. You walk in to an Sr-71 pointed right at you with a space shuttle behind it. I get goose bumps just walking into that place every time.

Carry a weapon

OK, maybe not that long for me, but I have seen that exhibit of the SR-71 and space shuttle.....come think of it, I took my wife there.....we been married 18.5 years.....so not so long.....:dance::confused5:

freeking memory is something I forgot to renew.....

:issues:

Congratulations on retirement.

This may help...

Thanks for all the info. The reason for selecting Houston is it's closer than Florida, and we also want to drive north into Colorado, Utah, Nevada, the head for home. Still trying to convince the wife to move out of CA since we both will be retired.

So I’m going to Johnson tomorrow to take one of my staff who is visiting from out of country. So anything you want me tk look at/take pictures for you? Hell I’ll even face time with you if you like.

I think you will be underwhelmed, but Houston welcomes your visit.

You could check out the Kemah Boardwalk while here.

I think of Houston as a "functional" city. Nothing much to see or do, but you can work every day and make a decent living. Not a tourist hot spot by any means.

I stand by my original recommendation. Theres a 16 minute history video and some history things, two bus tours and a self guided tour through the 747 and mock shuttle.

The two bus tours one takes you to a walk through of the iss training center and the other a walk through of the training control center and both drop you off at the Apollo V center.

The “level 9” tour promises to show more stuff but its $179 a person.
https://spacecenter.org/exhibits-and.../level-9-tour/