Winter Travel

Dallas cozies up as No. 4 best winter travel destination for warm-weather lovers

Everyone knows Dallas is a great destination any time of year.

TREC Dallas/Facebook

For Texans, winter in the Lone Star State brings a long-awaited respite from six months of unbearable heat. We're pretty content to finally leave the house without a double (or triple) layer of SPF. But for tourists, winter in Texas brings respite from the opposite problem: colder climates where locals actually experience things like rain and snow.

A recent WalletHub study shows Texas taking three of the top 10 "best winter vacation destinations for warm-weather lovers," with Dallas-Fort Worth landing at No. 4.

Austin came in just ahead, at No. 2.

Comparing around 70 of the largest U.S. metro areas, the study groups cities by warm and cold weather. Rather than a subjective survey of each locale's scenic beauty (in which Texas cities would also sweep the top 10, of course), WalletHub focused on the cost and convenience of traveling to each city, as well as the number of attractions and variety of activities in each destination.

As a result, the two lists rank "the cheapest U.S. destinations that are also the easiest to reach," according to the study's landing page. To compile the data, WalletHub measured 37 key metrics, including two weeks of flight data, safety indicators, and weather predictions.

In the warm weather category, Nevada's Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise metro area nabbed the No. 1 spot with an overall score of 67.18 and high marks in the number-of-attractions category (No. 2) and number of warm-weather activities (No. 1).

Austin came in a close second with an overall score of 64.76 and high marks for lowest travel costs and fewest hassles (No. 2), as well as best weather (No. 6) and number of warm-weather activities (No. 12).

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington earned top marks for lowest travel costs (No. 3) and best weather (No. 2).

In total, Texas took nine of the 37 spots in the warm weather category, with three cities in the top 5. Besides DFW and Austin, here's how other Texas metros fared on the list:

San Antonio-New Braunfels — No. 5. Top marks for lowest travel costs (No. 6) and lowest local costs (No. 3).
Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land — No. 7. Top marks for lowest travel costs (No. 1) and number of attractions (No. 9).
Killeen-Temple — No. 21. Top marks for lowest travel costs (No. 6).
McAllen-Edinburg-Mission — No. 27. Top marks for lowest travel costs (No. 1).
Corpus Christi — No. 32. Top marks for lowest travel costs (No. 7).
Brownsville-Harlingen — No. 33.
Beaumont-Port Arthur — No. 35.

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Holiday Travel News

American Airlines briefly halts flights nationwide for technical issue

Photo courtesy of American Airlines

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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.

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