Things to Do
What to actually do in El Paso
A 27,000-acre state park inside the city limits, missions that predate the United States, free museums downtown, and a ballpark with the mountains over the outfield wall. Plus the day trips that make this corner of the map worth the drive.
30 places, all checked September 21, 2026. Fees and seasons change, and a couple of these are closed for construction — we say so on the listing rather than letting you find out at the gate.
30 things to do
Franklin Mountains State Park
Inside the city limits
One of the largest urban parks in the United States, sitting in the middle of the city like a spine.
Read more →Hueco Tanks State Park & Historic Site
32 miles east of the city
Rock basins that held water in the desert for thousands of years, ringed by some of the most significant pictographs in North America — and world-class bouldering.
Read more →Scenic Drive Overlook
Rim Road / Murchison Park
The five-minute version of the mountain view: park, walk to the rail, and see El Paso and Juárez laid out as one city.
Read more →Transmountain Road (Loop 375)
Between the west and northeast sides
A highway that climbs straight through the Franklins — the most casually spectacular commute in Texas.
Read more →The Mission Trail
Lower Valley: Ysleta, Socorro, San Elizario
Three centuries of continuous worship along the valley: Ysleta Mission, Socorro Mission, and the San Elizario Chapel.
Read more →Concordia Cemetery
Central, near I-10
A sprawling frontier burial ground with separate sections for Chinese railroad workers, Buffalo Soldiers, Jesuits, and the gunfighter John Wesley Hardin.
Read more →Chamizal National Memorial
Central, along the border
A national park commemorating the peaceful settlement of a century-long border dispute between the United States and Mexico.
Read more →Magoffin Home State Historic Site
Magoffin, near downtown
An 1875 adobe hacienda still holding the furnishings of the family that helped build El Paso.
Read more →El Paso Museum of Art
Downtown, Arts Festival Plaza
A serious collection — European, American, Mexican colonial and contemporary border art — with free general admission.
Read more →El Paso Museum of History
Downtown
The city’s own story, plus the Digital Wall — an interactive archive of El Paso photographs you can pull apart with your hands.
Read more →El Paso Holocaust Museum & Study Center
Downtown
A small, carefully built museum founded by a survivor who settled in El Paso.
Read more →National Border Patrol Museum
Northeast, near the Franklins
Vehicles, aircraft, and artifacts documenting the history of the agency, housed in the only museum of its kind.
Read more →The Plaza Theatre
Downtown
A 1930 Spanish Colonial movie palace with a ceiling full of stars, saved from demolition and now the city’s marquee venue.
Read more →San Jacinto Plaza
Downtown
The heart of downtown, with Luis Jiménez’s fiberglass alligator sculpture standing in for the live ones that really lived here until 1965.
Read more →Downtown Arts District & Murals
Downtown, Union Plaza, Segundo Barrio
Galleries, studios, and an open-air mural scene that runs from Union Plaza into Segundo Barrio and out to the Lincoln Park underpasses.
Read more →El Paso Zoo
Central, near Washington Park
A mid-size city zoo with an Asian grasslands section, a Chihuahuan Desert area, and enough shade to survive a summer morning.
Read more →Keystone Heritage Park & El Paso Desert Botanical Garden
West Central
A wetland, an archaeological site dating back thousands of years, and a desert garden — all on the same few acres.
Read more →Rio Bosque Wetlands Park
Lower Valley, near the river
A restored stretch of Rio Grande bosque managed by UTEP, and the best birding in the county when the water is on.
Read more →Ascarate Park
Central / East
The county’s big park: a lake, golf, ballfields, a water park in season, and carne asada smoke every weekend.
Read more →Southwest University Park
Downtown
Home of the El Paso Chihuahuas, Triple-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres, and the downtown project that changed the neighborhood around it.
Read more →UTEP & the Sun Bowl
West Central
A campus built in Bhutanese-inspired architecture — genuinely, sloping walls and all — wrapped around a stadium carved into the mountain.
Read more →Sunland Park Racetrack & Casino
Sunland Park, New Mexico
Quarter horse and thoroughbred racing just over the state line, with the Sunland Derby as the marquee date.
Read more →White Sands National Park
Alamogordo, NM — about 90 minutes
Gypsum dunes so white they read as snow, and the best sledding in the desert.
Read more →Old Mesilla & Las Cruces
Doña Ana County, NM — about 45 minutes
An adobe plaza where Billy the Kid was sentenced, surrounded by New Mexico chile country.
Read more →Guadalupe Mountains National Park
About 2 hours east
The highest point in Texas, a reef that used to be underwater, and McKittrick Canyon turning gold every fall.
Read more →La Nube STEAM Discovery Center
Downtown Arts District
A 70,000-square-foot cloud-shaped building full of bilingual, hands-on exhibits — El Paso’s first children’s museum and science center, opened in August 2024.
Read more →El Paso Mexican American Cultural Center
Downtown, at the Main Library
A three-story, $15 million cultural center built into the Main Library at Cleveland Square, opened in March 2025 after years of community pressure to build it.
Read more →McKelligon Canyon
Central, in the Franklin Mountains
A box canyon cut into the Franklins with a road to the back of it, picnic areas, trailheads and a stone amphitheater that hosts Viva! El Paso each summer.
Read more →Wyler Aerial Tramway (closed for reconstruction)
Central, McKinley Ave
The gondola to Ranger Peak has been closed since 2018. A reconstruction backed by roughly $27 million in state funding is underway — but it is not open, and will not be for a while.
Read more →Lincoln Park & the freeway murals
Central, under the Spaghetti Bowl
Dozens of Chicano murals painted across the concrete columns where I-10 and US-54 cross — one of the most significant collections of Chicano public art in the Southwest.
Read more →