Featured Destination: Marfa, Texas

West Texas. It’s a dusty, wide-open landscape with real tumbleweed and huge skies, complete with looming mountain vistas on an endless horizon. Situated in the high desert, surrounded by three mountain ranges in the Chihuanhuan Desert, you can pretty much bet that you’re in the middle on nowhere. San Antonio is 5 hours away, and you stand 60 miles from the Mexican border. This is a snapshot of the last frontier.

Enter Marfa, a town of roughly 2,100, where ranching takes presedence, and art takes a close second. Marfa is the crossroads of urban cowboy, where dusty vintage cowboy boots meet skinny jeans and street food. Marfa is where one can find more galleries than grocery stores, and Dwell-worthy architecture fuses into a blinking stoplight and a Wild West vernacular.

Marfa's eclectic status is rooted in the works and inspiration of artist Donald Judd, one of the fathers of minimalism, who moved here from New York in 1973. Since that time, Marfa has mesmerized fans and out-of-towners, bringing in a steady flow of artists, wanderers, filmmakers and intellectuals on same quest for space and contemplation that only the high desert plains can satisfy. Case in point, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, both filmed scenes in the area and made Marfa their temporary home during production.

Intrigued? If Marfa will be your next roadtrip destination, keep these local spots in mind. For entertainment and a thought-provoking good time head to Ballroom Marfa. For beauty and contemplation, check out Cinanti Foundation. Pay homage to the artist who sparked a movement at Judd Foundation. Lay your head down at the historic and retro-chic Thunderbird Hotel. For a Mediterranean-by-way-of-West-Texas culinary experience, sit down at Food Shark.