Experience the best of Port Aransas

The town stands at the northern tip of Mustang Island, a barrier island on the Texas Coastal Bend, where the beach is wide, flat and firm enough for cars. A ferry crosses the ship channel to Harbor Island and the road to Aransas Pass, and dolphins are often seen alongside it.

Fishing built the town: charter boats head out into the Gulf, and anglers work the jetties and piers. Birdwatchers walk the boardwalks of the nature preserve and the birding centre on the marsh, and the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, farther up the coast, is where whooping cranes spend the winter. Each spring sculptors build giant sandcastles on the beach in a sand-sculpting contest.

Gulf seafood is on every menu: shrimp, oysters, fish tacos and grilled redfish, with Tex-Mex and burgers for the beach crowd. The water warms by late spring, summer is long and humid, and in winter the town welcomes visitors from colder states who come for the mild weather.