On a recent road trip holiday, we found ourselves with a 7-hour gap between flights. As our two flights were with different airlines, we needed to retrieve our luggage and exit the airport, before reentering the airport 5 hours later to check back in and catch our home-ward flight. We therefore considered what to do in Dallas and decided to head to the Sixth Floor Museum on our layover. Read on to find out more…
Table of Contents
What is a layover?
A layover occurs when you have a gap of time between two flights, typically for breaks in air travel of less than 24 hours.
If your flights are with the same airline, then your bags will usually be automatically transferred from one plane to another, and you would typically wait inside the airport. Note – sometimes even the same airline requires you to exit and reenter the airport, but this is less common.
Alternatively, if your second flight is with a different airline, then you will need to collect your luggage and leave the airport, before returning later to check-in for your onward flight. If the layover time is long enough then you might decide to see something in the connecting city, which was our situation in Dallas.
Stopovers – if you intentionally break your journey and decide to stay in the connecting city overnight, this is usually referred to as a Stopover. By way of example, on our way from the UK to Costa Rica, we deliberately booked a 2-night stopover in Houston to help acclimatise with the time zones and break the journey, which worked well – our time in Houston felt like a holiday within a holiday!
Practical arrangements for a layover
For our Dallas scenario, we still had our luggage with us, so took the decision to pay for a hotel room in the Hyatt Grand Hotel above Departures (the cheapest one they had available) so that we could:
- Leave our bags there whilst we went exploring (there was no Left Luggage facility at the airport), and
- Have quick showers on our return to refreshen up before checking in for our night flight back to the UK.
This strategy might see a little extreme, but we concluded that it had been money well spent. However, if you have hotel reward points with Hyatt then this is a good time to use them, to take the sting out of the full cost. Also, some airport hotels will rent unbooked rooms for a couple of hours for this purpose.
Obviously, if you have a layover where your bags are automatically transferred to your onward flight then you won’t have this issue, or expense.
Note – Dallas is huge so obviously you need to leave enough time to return to the airport (and collect your luggage, if relevant) in time to check in for your next flight. Pay attention to driving distances and allow for getting caught in traffic!
What to do in Dallas on a layover?
After some quick googling about what to do in Dallas, we took a taxi from Dallas Fort Worth Airport directly to Dealey Plaza in the West End Historic District. This was 16.3 miles and took around 20 minutes in the car.
Dealey Plaza (‘the grassy knoll’)
The ‘grassy knoll’ at Dealey Plaza is the location of one of the most shocking moments of American history. It overlooks the point on Elm Street where President John F Kennedy was fatally shot when he was passing by in a car with his wife Jackie (Jacqueline) on a tour of Texas cities. It’s a National Historic Landmark.
On 22 November 1963, the grassy knoll was full of people watching the procession pass by, with everyone trying to catch a glimpse of President Kennedy and the First Lady. When the gun shots rang out, the observers dropped to the ground as they thought they were in the firing line. When questioned afterwards people offered differing views on where they thought the shots had come from as sound echoes around the Plaza.
Only one photographer, Abraham Zapruder, captured the whole event on film and this was from the grassy knoll, and his film of the event is now legendary.
Today, a subtle cross in the middle of Elm Street rather eerily marks the spot where the President’s car was when he was killed after only 1000 days in office.
The Sixth Floor Museum
The Sixth Floor Museum is housed in a red brick building formerly the Texas School Book Depository Building. This is the building from which Lee Harvey Oswald ‘allegedly’ shot at President Kennedy from the Sixth-Floor windows. Interestingly on the plaque outside commemorating the building, someone has scratched a square around the word ‘allegedly’.
The Sixth Floor Museum is very well organised, full of photos, videos and information boards taking you through this historic period and the events around the assassination (the 4th American President to have been assassinated).
If you aren’t bothered about grabbing a bite to eat, or have a slightly longer lay over in Dallas, then I would recommend taking part in this walking tour, as it will fill time & be very informative:
Social and political context
The Museum starts by explaining the social and political context of the early 1960s:
- Kennedy’s run for President at a time when the Civil Rights Movement was causing turmoil in the country.
- Concerns about communism (Cuba, Southeast Asia) and the Cold War – it was a delicate balance of power between the Soviet Union and United States, two nuclear giants.
- Half the population were under 25 years old and needed to be energised to get the country moving again.
The election of President Kennedy (35th President)
The exhibits then move on to Kennedy’s election and how he fared whilst in office, detailing his successes and supporters, but also those who thought he was ‘off track’ – some thought he was ‘soft on communism’ and others were concerned about his extensive Civil Rights Bill.
Kennedy had come to Texas to encourage support and funds as part of his campaign for re-election in 1964.
Lee Harvey Oswald
The Museum details the moments of the shots and the aftermath during which time the police searched the Texas School Book Depository Building and found evidence that the shots had been fired from behind a pile of boxes in front of windows in the corner of the Sixth Floor, plus a rifle with range-finder hidden elsewhere on the same floor.
We learn about how Lee Harvey Oswald was pinpointed as the shooter, his background, how he was caught and then how he was assassinated himself four days later. The assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald by nightclub owner Jack Ruby led to several conspiracy theories which still circle to this day (hence the scratching of the word ‘allegedly’ on the Book Depository sign!).
I found the exhibits fascinating and would recommend the museum to anyone who wants to know more about this historic but tragic event.
Lunch on Pacific Avenue
From The Sixth Floor Museum we walked up Pacific Avenue for a couple of minutes and stopped at Chet’s Dallas (Irish American Comfort Food restaurant) on the corner of N Market Street for lunch. It was a toss-up with Moaks Family Texas BBQ on the opposite corner but chose Chet’s Dallas as it had better options for vegetarians. There was plenty of chose anyway in the area, so sourcing lunch was not a challenge.
Don’t Miss – Wild Bill’s Western Store on N Market Street
Wild Bill’s is a shop specialising in Western clothing including hats and cowboy boots, housed in an historic redbrick building. Sadly, we spotted it from the taxi windows as we were heading back the airport, but it looked great from the window displays. Next time!
Other ideas
For other ideas about what to do in Dallas, the Dallas Holocaust & Human Rights Museum and the Museum of Illusions are also in this area of the city.
On a parallel road to Pacific Avenue is Main Street with key retail and shops, although you might not be able to buy too much depending on your baggage allowance!
Now, we have a plane to catch, TAXI!
Final thoughts….
With only a few hours to spare we decided to keep things simple and visit just one place in Dallas so that we didn’t run out of time. With more time, we could have gone further afield, but keeping it simple and contained worked well.
We enjoyed our brief visit which felt like a bonus at the end of our holiday. Time well spent!
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