Two-Night Stays at Flying L Guest Ranch in Bandera, TX
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A guest ranch with a nightly campfire, horseback riding, mini golf, and a championship golf course
What You Get
Two-night stay for two. Up to two kids 10 or younger stay free.
- Option 1: $99 for a standard room, valid for check-in Sunday–Wednesday (up to a $200 value)
- Option 2: $159 for a ranch condo, valid for check-in Sunday–Wednesday (up to a $300 value)
- Option 3: $199 for a standard room, valid for check-in Thursday–Friday (up to a $400 value)
- Option 4: $259 for a ranch condo, valid for check-in Thursday–Friday (up to a $520 value)
Book by: 11/23/12
Travel by: 2/28/13Read the Fine Print for important info on travel dates and other restrictions.
A Taste of the Cowboy Lifestyle in Texas Hill Country
As night falls over Flying L Guest Ranch, entertainment director Buck Shannon plucks out a tune on his old six string as visitors brown marshmallows around a campfire. This folksy scene unfolds nightly at the ranch, a 542-acre property in Texas Hill Country. Flying L has welcomed a number of Western legends over the years, including John Wayne, Willie Nelson, and Slim Pickens. Today, cowboys and city slickers alike come for its country hospitality, mouthwatering down-home cooking, and wealth of outdoor activities for all ages.
For an additional fee, kids spend the day engaged in supervised activities such as arts and crafts, archery, and pony rides, while grownups can tackle the championship golf course or explore some of the many hiking trails nearby. Forty horses are housed in the barn. Head wrangler Tawni Solise is always on hand to match visitors with the proper steeds and lead one-hour trail rides. The ranch’s nightly entertainment changes frequently but runs the gamut from trick ropers and storytellers to country-line-dancing parties.
Homey touches grace standard rooms, each of which is uniquely decorated. Comfy couches and plush beds are dressed in shades of blue, gold, and red. In the freestanding Fort Apache cabins, replica guns, bucking-bronco artwork, and blond-wood furniture adhere to the property’s Western theme.
Bandera, Texas: Outdoor Adventure and Lively Honky-Tonks
Less than an hour outside of San Antonio, the grassy hills and rushing rivers of Texas Hill Country transport visitors back to the era of the old West. It’s not a cheap gambit to lure tourists looking for photo ops—the cowboys you see here are the real deal, and the hitching posts downtown are still used by actual horses. Come nighttime, locals lace up their dancing boots and boogie down in between sips of cold brews at one of the swinging honky-tonks. Outdoor adventure opportunities abound during the day. The open, rolling hills and many streams make it a prime location for riding horseback, angling for catfish, or proposing to an Eagle Scout.
Read the Fine Print for important info on travel dates and other restrictions.
Other Details
Room Details
In All Included Rooms
- Standard occupancy: 2
- Maximum occupancy: 4
- Adding occupants above standard: not allowed for guests 11 and older; kids 10 and younger stay free
Standard Rooms: Bunk House and Fort Apache Cabins
- One king bed or two queen beds and one sofa sleeper
Ranch Condos: Villa 44, Rooms 45–46, and Colonel’s Headquarters
- One king bed and one sofa sleeper
- Full kitchen
Hotel Policies
- Check-in: 4 p.m.
- Check out: 11 a.m.
- Parking: free
- Rollaways: not available
- Smoking policy: no smoking inside the property
- Pet policy: pets are not allowed inside the property.
- Accessibility: handicap-accessible rooms are available upon request during booking.
- Room upgrades: upgrade to meal package including breakfast and dinner for an additional $25 per person.
Amenities
- Horseback riding, championship golf course, and supervised activities for kids available for an additional fee
- Mini-golf course
- Breakfast and dinner buffet available for an additional fee
- Horseshoes, ping-pong, shuffleboard, tennis, and basketball
- Nightly marshmallow roast around the campfire
- Swimming pool
- Evening entertainment
Traveler's Tips
- Upgrade to meal package including breakfast and dinner for an additional $25 per person.
Getting There
- By plane: about 49 miles from San Antonio International Airport (SAT)
- By car: about 51 miles northwest of San Antonio
Need to know info
About Flying L Guest Ranch
Jack Lapham strolled all 542 acres of the ranch, breathing in the desert air deeply and squinting at the shrub-speckled hills. On the horizon of this empty Western wilderness, he saw fences for horse stables, hotel suites, shooting ranges, and aircraft runways. The ranch’s owner stood behind him as he surveyed the land. “What do you think?” the owner asked, his voice firm and husky, like gravel. Jack, a former military colonel, turned and smiled a soldier’s wry smile. With a twinkle in his eye, he pulled out his checkbook. “This looks like a place where modern people can go and find themselves in the midst of yesterday.”
Over its next 65+ years as a dude ranch, the Flying L was the setting for aircraft tests, visits from famous authors, and the TV show The Cisco Kid. Today, staffers maintain its desert landscape and historic stone villas—many designed by associates of Frank Lloyd Wright—as a Western family resort. Suites lodge visitors among fireplaces and king-size beds, and modern and traditional decor styles meet inside tile bathrooms and wood-cabin construction. An 18-hole golf course rambles between massive oak trees, and miniature-golf fairways encounter obstacles such as rocky outcroppings and wagon wheels. An authentic ranch stable houses 40 horses, which can carry riders around the fields or on trots along grassy trails and rocky riverside paths. Nearby, a water park battles the desert heat and incites the hurt feelings of mirages with an artificial wave pool, tubing river, and water slides.