Texas travel

2 Texas Hill Country parks book places on new list of America’s best campgrounds

Two destinations in the Texas Hill Country have earned top spots in a new ranking of the country’s best campgrounds.

Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park Camp-Resort: Guadalupe River in Kerrville grabs three honors in Campspot’s first-ever awards program, and Camp Fimfo Hill Country near New Braunfels scores two honors. Panelists from the outdoors industry picked the winners. Campspot is a booking platform for campgrounds.

Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park Camp-Resort: Guadalupe River earned three awards:

Ninth-best campground.
Second-best campground for families.
Third-best camping sites (Riverfront Red Carpet RV Sites).

Campspot describes the Kerrville campground as “the perfect place for families to have the vacation of a lifetime. Whether you’re looking to kick back and relax or spend the day busy with fun activities, this [campground] is an ideal location.”

Amenities at the campground include Yogi Bear’s Water Zone and an 18-hole mini-golf course.

Highlights of the Riverfront Red Carpet RV Sites include electric, water, and sewer hookups at each concrete pad, as well as a cable TV connection, picnic table, fire ring, and charcoal grill.

The other regional winner is Camp Fimfo Texas Hill Country, which is east of Canyon Lake and north of New Braunfels. It ranks third among the top campgrounds for families and second for campground design. Features at Camp Fimfo include a swim-up bar, water slides, and outdoor movies.

“Step outside of the ordinary and … outside in general with a glamping or camping experience at Camp Fimfo,” Campspot says.

Camp Fimfo offers three types of RV sites and three types of cabins. At an average of $275 a night, the three-bedroom cabin is the priciest option. It sleeps 12, and comes with a full kitchen and private bathroom.

Jellystone features a variety of water adventures, from pools and hot tubs to waterslides and the giant Yogi Bear's Water Zone for kids.

Jellystone Guadalupe River/Instagram

Jellystone features a variety of water adventures, from pools and hot tubs to waterslides and the giant Yogi Bear's Water Zone for kids.

nature vacation rankings families

Holiday Travel News

American Airlines briefly halts flights nationwide for technical issue

Photo courtesy of American Airlines

undefined

American Airlines briefly grounded flights nationwide Tuesday due to a technical issue just as the Christmas travel season kicks into high gear.

American flights were cleared to fly by federal regulators about one hour after a national ground stop order was issued by federal regulators.

Just before 8 am Dallas time, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered all American Airlines flights grounded in the U.S. at the airline’s request. American had reported a technical issue affecting its entire system with millions traveling for the holiday.
The ground stop, according to the time stamps on the FAA's orders, lasted exactly one hour.

American has not expanded on what technical issue grounded the flights and the airline did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The groundings couldn't come at a worse time for the millions of travelers expected to fly over the next 10 days. The Transportation Security Administration expects to screen 40 million passengers over the holidays and through January 2.

Many flights during the holidays are sold out, which makes cancellations even more disruptive than during slower periods. Even with just a brief outage, the cancellations have a cascading effect that can take days to clear up.

In December 2022, Southwest Airlines stranded 2 million travelers, and Delta Air Lines suffered a smaller but significant meltdown after a worldwide technology outage in July caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike.

Southwest was ordered to pay a $35 million fine as part of a $140 million settlement to resolve a federal investigation into the Christmas debacle of 2022.

Excluding the settlement, the nation’s fourth-biggest airline by revenue said the meltdown cost it more than $1.1 billion in refunds and reimbursements, extra costs and lost ticket sales over several months.

holidays