The North Lake Conroe Paddling Company is a unique kayak outfitter with lakefront property offering year-round rentals of solo, sit-on-top kayaks for recreation, touring, birding, and fishing. The location of this company is ideal with protected Class I water for newcomers and families as well as access to touring the vast natural shorelines of national forest.

In 1899, Sam Houston Park became Houston’s first public park. Historic postcards reveal “City Park” as it was then known, as having a children’s zoo, wading pool and picturesque wooden bridges. Today, as home to the Houston Heritage Society, the park is devoted to preserving Houston’s history by restoring and interpreting early historic structures.

This Texas Parks and Wildlife Department facility, Sea Center Texas, includes a marine aquarium, fish hatchery, and wetland exhibit. A 50,000-gallon aquarium allows visitors to view large Gulf of Mexico marine animals. The site’s visitor center educates through interpretive displays; a 20-foot “touch tank;" and aquariums depicting native Texas habitats, including a salt marsh, jetty, reef, and open Gulf exhibits.

The result of a nationwide design competition, Buffalo Bayou Sesquicentennial Park has become an urban oasis in the heart of Houston’s downtown Theater District. Serving as the park’s gateway, the two-acre Phase I site, includes a cascading fountain, gatehouse, and octagonal pavilion adjacent to the Wortham Theater. The 8.2-acre Phase II site includes sculptures and lawn areas for outdoor events.

The Sheldon Lake Unit encompasses 2,800 acres with fishing, small boats and canoes, and birdwatching throughout the park. The Lake Unit is home to oak, pine, cypress, sycamore, several types of water lilies, deer, raccoon, opossum, rabbit, alligator, and twenty species of waterfowl.

Spotts Park, which lies in a natural bowl just northeast of Waugh and Memorial west of downtown, includes a trail/walkway, basketball court, volleyball court, children’s playground, and picnic area.

Stephen F. Austin Park is divided into two sections, a small historic section and the larger recreational area. The historical area honors the areas past where Stephen F. Austin brought the first 297 families to colonize Texas and several historical conventions occurred. Its natural setting is great for hiking and fishing and offers forested areas for deer, squirrels, raccoons, foxes, opossums, and a variety of birds that is present year-round.

The Texas City Preserve, with 40 acres open to the public and 2000 acres on tours, features rare coastal prairie habitat and supports wild Attwater's Prairie Chickens. The Preserve features bluestem, the occasional are coastal gayfeather, nesting colonies of least terns and black skimmers, American peregrine falcon, white-tailed hawk, reddish egrets, and more.

The Park People completed a development effort of this formerly underutilized green space in Houston’s East End Second Ward neighborhood.

Named for the Sea of Tranquility and featuring a monument honoring the first men on the moon, Tranquility Park is filled with grassy embankments and serene pools while situated right next to City Hall in downtown Houston.