driving south to south padri (Houston, South Padre Island: rentals, condos, hotel)

[shehabra2000]

i will take a one weak vacation to south padri for the 1st time. what are advises to consider and attraction to see with family. i am newly residence in Houston from the middle east.

thank you all in advance for your feedback

[doctorjef]

Uh, it's South Padre, not "Padri". The long barrier island along much of the Texas coast is Padre Island. South Padre is a separate barrier island just off the much bigger Padre (Father) Island.

It's not really an exciting or interesting place. The attraction is the beach and water itself, which is incredibly warm by this time of the summer.

[texasdiver]

I was just there for a week with my family. I suggest you get a condo rental rather than a hotel so that you will have a larger place and a kitchen and won't be dependent on restaurants for every meal. The beach is lined with thousands of rental condos. VRBO is a good site to find condos, although there are many others:

VRBO - South Padre Island Vacation Rentals

Suggest you find one on the beach so that you don't have to drive back and forth. And possibly one with a pool. We were at the Suntide II which is a nice middle-range building that had a pool and was in a good location. You can pay much more for the newer fancier towers such as the Sapphire. For a family a condo will be much nicer than a hotel room.

As for what to do in Padre, aside from the obvious beach time there are horseback riding places where you can go on guided riding tours on the beach. That is fun for kids. There are many places to do sport fishing if you want to get out on the ocean. There is a Schlitterbahn water park. One interesting excursion is to visit the Sea Turtle center which is on the north end of the island. It is a rescue center for sea turtles and they have aquariums, presentations, and a gift shop. It is free.

For restaurants of which there are dozens if not hundreds, just use urban spoon or yelp to find what you want.

[texasdiver]

PS....on the way home from South Padre you will pass an immigration inspection station. It is only on the way home, not the way there. It looks just like the regular border crossing stations except that it is 60 miles north of the border. If you are traveling with anyone who is not a US citizen, or for who due to ethnicity, language, etc. may raise questions with the immigrations officers then I suggest you bring adequate documents along. Passports, visas, American IDs, etc. to smooth that process. My family is blonde and gringo looking so they just wave us past after asking if we are all US citizens but I see others who are pulled to the side and getting their documents more thoroughly checked.