Downtown Houston is a playpen for the world’s great architects. Yet, on a hot day, few people are outside to enjoy the views. What’s up with that?  Take an escalator to the basement of most buildings and you’ll see people activity busier than an ant colony. Downtown has the world’s most extensive commercial underground network lined with shops and connecting buildings. Rounding out the scene is the Theater District making Houston one of only five American cities with permanent ballet, orchestra, opera, symphony and theater companies and a theatre just for touring Broadway plays. The NBA Rockets and WNBA Comets basketball teams play to packed stands in the new Toyota Center. Minute Maid Park is an air-conditioned palace of a baseball park, with a retractable dome and a small train that moves whenever someone hits a home run. The Houston Astros, who finally made it to the baseball World Series, play here.

    Midtown has the internationally famous Museum District, home to 11 museums that offer everything from fine art exhibitions to the most eclective museums you can imagine. The diversity of the Galleria/Post Oak District is a natural draw for visitors, highlighted by the Galleria, Houston's largest retail mall. It features 320 stores, a huge ice skating rink, a stunning water wall fountain, and the world’s tallest skyscraper outside of a Central Business District. You’ll find plenty of company at the Galleria, visited by more than 16 million people annually.

    Families enjoy the Downtown Aquarium and would class Childrens Museum of Houston. But No family trip to Houston is complete without visiting NASA Space Center. See the huge Saturn rocket that lifts Space Shuttles into the upper atmosphere. Let your children step inside the cockpit of a space shuttle. There’s even an exhibit of the Black astronauts. Few things are more inspirational. Leave family time for a tour of the sublime beach attractions on Galveston Island, including Moody Gardens and Kemah Island.

    Must-see Afrocentric sites include the National Buffalo Soldiers Museum, Shrine of the Black Madonna Cultural Center, Biggers Art Gallery and Barbara Jordan Archives at Texas Southern University, American Cowboy Museum, The Ensemble Theatre, and Antioch Missionary Baptist Church. CushCity.com, the world’s largest online Black bookstore is located here. The Starving Poets are keeping it real at various places around town and a thriving soulful coffeehouse, café and restaurant scene has arrived.

    Though attractions are spread around this region of diverse cultures, downtown is lifting the collection identity if Houston’s districts in ways that are certain to attract repeat visitors for many years to come. With the many blossoming Back heritage attractions and Galveston Island 45 miles to the southeast, an influx of New Orleanians, plus the family attractions of Galveston, this place will soon give Atlanta a run for the money!