Mardi Gras! Galveston
Jan 29 – Feb 9
The Strand, Galveston
A past year's event · photo A Yee, CC BY 2.0
Twelve days of parades, balcony parties, and bead throws across Galveston, billed as the largest Mardi Gras in Texas and now in its 116th year.
Before you go
This runs January 29 to February 9, 2027 — twelve days rather than the single weekend most people picture, with more than twenty parades and twenty-plus concerts spread across them. Organisers put it in its 116th year and call it the largest in Texas.
The thing to understand before you book is that Mardi Gras Galveston is layered. Watching a parade from the street is the free version, and it is genuinely good. Balcony tickets on The Strand are the paid version, and on the big Saturday nights they are the difference between seeing the parade and seeing the back of a crowd. Entertainment-district wristbands are a third, separate thing. Decide which one you are buying before you are on the island.
Galveston is about an hour from Houston down I-45 and the island's parking fills early on parade nights. If you are staying over, book well ahead — hotel rates on the big weekends are nothing like the rest of winter.
Prices and the parade schedule are on their site and change by night.
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In Galveston: The island, about an hour away.
Nearby
Nearby in Galveston
Moody Gardens
$$Three glass pyramids on Galveston Island: a 10-story rainforest, an aquarium with penguins, and a 3D theater. Plus a paddlewheel boat and a small beach. A full day for families.
Galveston · Indoor · Kids
Galveston Island Historic Pleasure Pier
$$A 1,130-foot amusement pier over the Gulf with 16 rides, midway games, and a Bubba Gump. Best at sunset when the Ferris wheel lights up over the water.
Galveston · Kids
The Strand Historic District
FreeFive blocks of iron-front Victorian buildings, once the 'Wall Street of the Southwest.' Shops, old-fashioned candy stores, the 1877 tall ship Elissa, and the Galveston Railroad Museum.
Galveston
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