Weird day trips from Dallas

The strangest Dallas finds are often a short drive out. These 24 day trips — Bubastis Oasis, O.T.O. (public Gnostic Mass), Pinned Ptera, Bewitched Denton and more — are each hand-vetted and sourced: ghost towns, hot-spring soaks, roadside oddities, and odd small-town museums worth the gas. A weird day trip is its own kind of date.

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Bubastis Oasis, O.T.O. (public Gnostic Mass) An officially chartered body of Ordo Templi Orientis, active since 1988 and the oldest continually running O.… Dallas / DFW Metroplex
Pinned Ptera An ethical insect-taxidermy studio-shop run by Morgan and Micah Loftin, with a neon sign and a goal of buildi… Denton (off Mulberry Street)
Bewitched Denton Bewitched Denton is Denton's first brick-and-mortar pagan and metaphysical shop, operating since 2021 inside… Denton
HereAfter HereAfter is a two-floor macabre sanctuary on Denton's downtown square: the ground floor is a retail oddities… Denton
Creation Evidence Museum A proudly earnest young-Earth creationist museum where stone slabs displaying alleged human footprints presse… Glen Rose
Big Rocks Park Big Rocks Park is a free city park where the Paluxy River has sculpted massive Cretaceous limestone boulders… Glen Rose
Granbury Opera House (John Wilkes Booth seat) The 1886 Granbury Opera House is a fully active community theater run by the Granbury Theatre Company, stagin… Granbury
The Famous Mineral Water Company / Crazy Water Bar The Famous Mineral Water Company is the last surviving pavilion from Mineral Wells' early-1900s "crazy water"… Mineral Wells
Haunted Hill House An 1890s Victorian that served as a brothel and speakeasy for wealthy Baker Hotel guests, the Haunted Hill Ho… Mineral Wells
Room One Eleven Room One Eleven is a fully operational 1920s prohibition-era speakeasy tucked behind a Coca-Cola vending mach… McKinney
Crazy Water Bath House & Spa A genuine revival of Mineral Wells' legendary wellness heritage: you soak in oxygen-microbubble-infused miner… Mineral Wells
Penitentiary Hollow, Lake Mineral Wells State Park Penitentiary Hollow is a labyrinthine maze of 20–40-foot sandstone conglomerate cliffs tucked inside Lake Min… Mineral Wells
Baker Hotel Ghost Walk A guide-led outdoor ghost walk circling the hulking, 14-story 1929 Baker Hotel — condemned and abandoned sinc… Mineral Wells
Petrified Wood Speakeasy Ruins (Ed Young Station) The skeletal walls of Ed Young's Station — a Prohibition-era gas station and speakeasy built entirely from pe… Glen Rose
100 West Corsicana (Artist & Writer Residency) An 11,000-square-foot 1890s Odd Fellows lodge in downtown Corsicana — virtually unaltered since construction… Corsicana
Webb Gallery Webb Gallery has occupied a sprawling 5,000 sq ft 1902 downtown building since 1994, packing it with self-tau… Waxahachie
Hood County Jail Museum This 1885 limestone two-story jailhouse operated as Hood County's only lock-up until 1978 and still holds its… Granbury
Fossil Rim Wildlife Center Fossil Rim is a 1,800-acre working conservation center where you drive a 7.2-mile winding road through open p… Glen Rose
Dirty Laundry From the sidewalk it reads like a working laundromat — a tidy row of front-loaders, digital displays showing… Fort Worth (West 7th)
Paschall Bar Denton's only speakeasy hides in plain sight — you enter through Andy's Bar downstairs, find the unmarked doo… Denton
Mineral Wells Fossil Park What was once the City of Mineral Wells' landfill borrow pit turned out to be something far stranger: twenty-… Mineral Wells
No Vacancy Invite-only subterranean cocktail lounge whose entrance is a green street dumpster that pops open when you sc… Fort Worth (West 7th)
The Velvet Coffin Small macabre oddities shop packed with taxidermy, wet specimens, bones, and vintage medical curiosities in a… Richland Hills
Higher Purpose Emporium & Apothecary By-appointment metaphysical shop with an in-store Temple to Hekate, a learning library, and a fully stocked a… Fort Worth (River Oaks)