Welcome Fans, Friends, and Visitors,

Hi. January is one of the slower months.  This can be attributed to people saving their money to pay for the presents that they bought and the money that they spent partying for the holidays of December.  Furthermore, any month with a public holiday such as New Year’s Day and Martin Luther King, Jr’s Birthday is a month with generally less days of people touring while they spend the day with family and friends at home or in the backyard cooking.  For the tourist, this can be good as it will be easier for Houston Historical Tours to schedule your personal tour.

Weather in Houston

January is Houston’s coldest month.  Be prepared to wear a coat.  The monthly average high temperature is 63 degrees Fahrenheit/17 degrees Centigrade.  The monthly average low temperature is 45 degrees Fahrenheit/7 degrees Centigrade, and the mean is 54 degrees Fahrenheit/12 degrees Centigrade.  The average rainfall is 4.25 inches/10.7 centimeters.  It is the eighth wettest month of the year.

Tours Below

Mention that you read about any of the tours below (other than the monthly specials) from the blog and you will receive a 10% discount in the month of December.  What a deal!

Space Center Houston (SCH) (NASA) Tours

This is a good tour to take, particularly in the latter half of the month and well into February and March.  You spend most of the time in buildings during this cold, by Houston standards, weather.  Once school is in session again, the crowds are smaller, the queues are shorter, the noise is softer, and the tram rides often stop at three sites rather than just two sites.  We offer a number of options.  The tour is normally eight hours to include all of the sites and activities; this includes about 6.5 hours at NASA and allows for about 1.5 hours in total to drive to NASA in the morning and to return in rush hour traffic in the afternoon.  However, if you want to save time and or money by shortening it to 7 or 6 hours by deleting some of the activities, we can customize it for you.  You can also save money if you only want the transportation with or without the admission ticket.  Transport will drop you off at NASA and then pick you up later.  You are on your own to roam about the facility.  A tour includes having a tour guide to run you around, making sure that you see everything possible, and to provide you narratives on the exhibits and about the history and why Houston has a space center.  Go to the Houston Historical Tours website to read more.

City Tours

We offer city tours of Houston ranging from 2 to 9 hours depending on what you want to see.  You have two options for 2-hour tours, A 1 and A2.  A1 focuses on classical Houston – the theater district, downtown, sports stadiums, River Oaks’s old wealth mansions, the Rice Village, Rice University, Mecom Fountains, the primary Museum District, and Hermann Park, Houston’s most popular park.  A2 focuses on the more offbeat Houston where you will see sites that unique to Houston such as the largest church in the US, the most photographed area in Houston, the 64-foot Waterwall where 11,000 gallons of water pour off of it every minute, the 4^th largest shopping mall in the US and the largest in the South, the Galleria, the Beer Can House, the Spear House, the Gargoyle House, the art car studio of Mark Bradford or Art Car Museum, a Orange Crush and Beer Can statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and more.  If you take a 3-hour tour, you can see all of that plus stop for a break in The Chocolate Bar.  A 4-hour tour Monday through Friday will normally include walking through a 3-block section of the underground downtown tunnels and going to an observation deck.  The tunnels and observation deck are only open on weekdays.  On weekends, we substitute driving through the Houston Heights or driving through the second Museum District by the University of St. Thomas. A 5-hour tour includes a stop for lunch of your choice.  Just tell us what food you want to savor.  Six hour and longer tours can easily be customized to either cover more areas of Houston such as the Eado and East End or give time to go into museums, galleries, and parks.  The two- hour tours cover about 20 miles/32 kilometers, and we add about 10 miles/16 kilometers per hour of area covered for each additional hour.  For 4-hour tours and longer, we have about one stop per hour to take photographs, use a bathroom, get refreshments, and or have lunch. See our website for the descriptions.

National Food Day Tours

Did you know that:

• January 1^st is National Bloody Mary Day?
• January 2^nd is National Creampuff Day?
• January 3^rd is National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day?
• January 12^th is National Cheesesteak and Cheesecake Day?
• January 24^th is National Peanut Butter Day?
• January 27^th is National Chocolate Cake Day?

We will create a customized 3-hour themed tour for your enjoyment anytime in this month for the above gastronomical sensations.  We can combine two or more of the above holidays.  Who does not like comfort food and drink?

Monthly Special – Discounted by 17 to 43% Based on the Number of People

The monthly special for January is a walking tour through Houston’s lesser known museum district.   If you like high culture, this is a GREAT tour!  You can go inside 5 museums and 3 chapels.  These include:

• The Dan Flavin Installation,
• The Cy Twombly Gallery,
• The Menil Collection,
• The Watercolor Art Society – Houston (WASH),
• The Houston Center for Photography (HCP),
• The Rothko Chapel,
• The Chapel of Saint Basil, and
• The former Byzantine Fresco Chapel.
• Time-permitting, we might go into one or two more galleries.

These sites are all FREE to enter.  The museums are closed on Monday.  Many of these places are world renown.  The Dalai Lama has been to the Rothko Chapel.  Many people consider The Menil Collection as the best free art museum in the United States.  We may run out of time if you are having too much fun while spending a lot of time in any or all of these museums.  You will also discover a number of small cafes and restaurants in the area.<

The tour starts at the free parking lot pathway that leads to Sul Ross Street.  The parking lot has two access points:

• 1515 West Alabama Street, Houston, Texas 77006
• 3808 Mulberry Street, Houston, Texas 77006.

Monthly Special Prices

• 1 person – $40.00.  This is a 43% discount off of the regular price of $70.00

$40.00 + $3.30 (Sales tax of 8.25%) = $43.30 Total.

• 2 people – $30.00 each.  This is a 25% discount off of the regular price of $40.00 per person.

$30.00 + $2.48 (Sales tax of 8.25%) = $32.48 per person x 2 people = $64.96 Total.

• 3 or 4 people – $25.00 each.  This is a 17% discount off the regular price of $30.00 per person.

$25.00 + $2.07 (Sales tax of 8.25%) = $27.07 per person.
$27.07 per person x 3 people = $81.21 Total.
$27.07 per person x 4 people = $108.28 Total.

• 5 to 9 people – $20.00 each.  This is a 20% discount off the regular price of $25.00 per person.

$20.00 + $1.65 (Sales tax of 8.25%) = $21.65 per person.  $21.65 x 5 people = $108.25.
$20.00 + $1.65 (Sales tax of 8.25%) + $3.00 (15% gratuity for parties of 6 or more people) = $24.65 per person x 6, 7, 8, or 9 people.

• 10 to 19 people – $15.00 each.  This is a 25% discount off the regular price of $20.00 per person.
  $15.00 + $1.24 (Sales tax of 8.25%) + $2.25 per person (15% gratuity for parties of 6 or more people) = $18.49 per person x the number of people.

Some Positive Forms of Recognition

Lastly, here are some positive forms of recognition:

• Houston Historical Tours has been selected to receive the Small Business Excellence Award for 2018 in the Historical Tours category by Small Business Excellence.
• Houston Historical Tours will be in AAA Texas Travel Books for the 9^th consecutive year. AAA Tour Books are the most popular tour books in the nation.

We are proud of these accomplishments.

Invite Your Friends

If you know anyone who would be interested in receiving our blogs, please let us know at houstonhistory@aol.com. Provide a clear name and email address for the person or group and we will sign them up. Thanks.

See you on a tour.

Sincerely,

Keith Rosen
Houston Historical Tours
P. O. Box 262404
Houston, Texas 77207-2404
(713) 392-0867
(713) 643-4086 Fax
houstonhistory@aol.com
www.houstonhistoricaltours.com