Houston

Getting there

Houston is a car city that is, unexpectedly and to its credit, doing the World Cup mostly by train. METRO has committed to the Red Line at six-minute headways for the duration of the tournament, the Red Line runs straight from downtown to NRG Park Station, and NRG Park Station is a two-minute walk from the stadium gates. This is the one rail win in a city otherwise built around freeways, and it's a real one.

Flying in: George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) is the big hub, 23 miles north of downtown. Hobby (HOU) is smaller, closer, and often cheaper on Southwest out of Dallas Love Field. Both have dedicated METRO Downtown Direct express buses running every 30 minutes during the tournament. From downtown, you transfer to the Red Line.

To the stadium: Red Line from downtown or the Museum District straight to NRG Park Station. 27 minutes from the far downtown stops. No parking conversation, no freeway-at-kickoff conversation. METRO is also staging standby buses near NRG in case of rail issues — the kind of contingency planning that suggests someone has watched what goes wrong at these things.

Base yourself smart: Downtown if you want the Fan Festival, restaurants, and the Red Line at your doorstep. Midtown or Montrose if you want neighborhoods that feel like somewhere actual people live — both are a short Red Line or rideshare hop. The Galleria area is hotel-dense but soulless; only base there if the room is unreasonably cheap.

The fan zone

The FIFA Fan Festival Houston takes over a large chunk of East Downtown (EaDo) around Shell Energy Stadium — the Houston Dynamo's home, itself a few blocks from the main downtown core. 39 days of programming. Parking lots, green spaces, and streets converted into a viewing area, a stage, food stalls, sponsor activations, youth soccer fields, and the kind of 15,000-per-day crowd that turns a neighborhood into a festival. Free admission.

EaDo is also having a moment as a bar-and-restaurant neighborhood, so the Fan Festival footprint bleeds naturally into a walkable dinner-and-drinks zone afterward. If you're in Houston for more than a day, go at least once. If you're in Houston for a week, go on a Mexico match day — the crowd will be enormous, green-clad, and loud in the specific way only Mexican soccer fans are loud.

Where to watch without tickets

• The Maple Leaf Pub (Montrose, 514 Elgin St) — Houston's Canadian-expat-turned-general-international soccer bar. Cold beer, multiple screens, and the kind of regulars who will tell you which country's chapter takes over which corner. First stop for any English, Canadian, or European match.
• Rudyard's British Pub (Montrose, 2010 Waugh Dr) — Rudz. Forty years old, unchanged, dim and loud. The original Houston soccer bar. Darts, bangers, a crowd that remembers the 1994 World Cup being played at the Cotton Bowl.
• The Pit Room (Montrose, 1201 Richmond Ave) — Not strictly a soccer bar, but one of the best barbecue kitchens in the city with TVs at the bar and a crowd that will happily make it a soccer bar for a Mexico kickoff. Order the brisket and the hot-gut sausage.
• Little Woodrow's (multiple locations, EaDo and Midtown) — The Texas sports-bar chain with multiple locations relevant here. The EaDo location is walking distance from the Fan Festival; the Midtown location is Dynamo-supporter central and will be Mexico-supporter central on a match day.
• Lucky's Pub (EaDo, 801 St. Emanuel St) — Big, sprawling, outdoor patio, Dynamo supporter-group HQ (El Batallón and the Houston Dynamo supporter section both set up here for away matches). On a World Cup Mexico or US match, this is ground zero in Houston.
• Axelrad Beer Garden (Midtown, 1517 Alabama St) — Beer garden, hammocks, pizza trailer, projector screen for big matches. The lowest-key option on this list and the best for an afternoon group-stage match when you want the day off.

Eat & drink

Houston is, unglamorously and undeniably, the best big-city eating in the United States that isn't New York or LA. The reason is immigration: more than 145 languages spoken, the largest Vietnamese community in Texas, the largest Nigerian community in the US, enormous Mexican, Central American, Indian, and Pakistani populations, and a food scene that reflects all of it.

Tex-Mex, original recipe: The Original Ninfa's on Navigation (East End) — 1973, the restaurant that introduced most of America to the fajita. Order the fajitas, the green sauce, a margarita. Non-negotiable.

Barbecue: Truth BBQ (Washington Ave) for brisket that argues with the Central Texas titans. Killen's (Pearland, south of town) for a dry-aged brisket experience worth the drive. Pinkerton's for the Houston-BBQ-with-a-Texas-attitude option.

Vietnamese: The southwest corridor of the city — Bellaire Boulevard especially — is arguably the best Vietnamese food in America. Huynh (East Downtown) for bun bo Hue. Mai's (Midtown) for 2 a.m. pho after the match. Crawfish & Noodles (Bellaire) for Viet-Cajun crawfish, which is a Houston invention and one of the great food mashups of the 21st century.

Mexican, elevated: Hugo's (Montrose) for regional Mexican across the country's states. Cuchara (Montrose) for Mexico City cantina cooking. El Big Bad (Downtown) for a margarita selection that will ruin you for most other margaritas.

Coffee-to-dinner: Agricole Hospitality projects (Coltivare, Eight Row Flint) if you want a nice dinner in the Heights. Xochi if you want the best Oaxacan food outside Oaxaca.

Things to do

• Space Center Houston (Clear Lake, 25 miles south) — Mission Control, actual Saturn V, the Apollo and Shuttle artifacts. Half-day minimum. Do it on an off-day; it's an hour each way and worth it.
• The Menil Collection (Montrose) — Free. One of the most remarkable small museums in the country, built by the Menil family around their private collection. Do the Rothko Chapel next door (also free) and sit there for ten minutes.
• Museum District — The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the Contemporary Arts Museum, the Children's Museum if you brought kids. Red Line stop.
• Buffalo Bayou Park — The bayou-side park that cuts through downtown. Rent a kayak, walk the trails, climb the Waugh Bridge around sunset to watch the bat colony fly out (yes, really — 250,000 bats, nightly).
• Galveston Beach (1 hr south) — Day trip. The Gulf is warm and brown, not blue and clear. Go for the boardwalk and the Victorian Strand District, not the Instagram water.
• Houston Rodeo isn't running in June — it's February/March — but the Rodeo Museum and the whole western-heritage thread of the city is worth an afternoon if you're curious why everyone seems to own a pearl-snap shirt.

Heat survival and the roof

Houston in June is 95°F with 80-percent humidity and a brutal UV index. Walking three blocks to the train will leave you wet. The payoff: NRG Stadium has a retractable roof and will keep it closed, with full air conditioning, for every match. Like Atlanta, this is a massive advantage — you'll sit in air-conditioned comfort while the Fan Festival outside sweats through the afternoon.

Drink water constantly. Real water, not alcohol-adjacent water. Carry an empty reusable bottle through security and fill it inside. Sunscreen in the morning, again after lunch, again before the match if you're still outside. A light long-sleeve is counterintuitively better than a T-shirt in the sun. Afternoon thunderstorms are less frequent than in Miami but still possible; if one rolls in while you're at an outdoor bar, don't try to outrun it — duck inside and let it pass, which it will within 30 minutes.

The other Houston-specific thing: the mosquitoes. By late June they are a consideration at dusk, especially near Buffalo Bayou. A small bottle of DEET or picaridin spray in your bag is not a bad idea.