10 Most Instagrammable Places in Houston

The Gerald D. Hines Waterwall Park features a human-made artificial waterfall that seems to sprout from nowhere in the middle of an urban park and that will highlight your feed. The waterwall is the highlight of the park, and it's a great place both to cool off and to photograph; the constant mist is a good way to get away from the heat for a little while. Just be careful if your phone or camera isn't waterproof.

Besides the waterwall, the park offers a few blocks' worth of green space in the heart of downtown Houston's Galleria mall. It's a good place to go to escape from the hustle and bustle and relax, all without actually leaving the city.

Hermann Park offers a wide range of things to do and places to photograph, from scenic walking trails to reflecting pools, gardens, columns, and more. The reflecting pool is serene and ideal for photo composition, and the traditional Japanese gardens add a touch of culture to your feed. The obelisk is towering and stark, while the circular colonnade with its central fountain will lend to your Instagram account a classic European flare and sense of the antique.

This vast, serene park isn't just a great place to go for photographs. It also offers a golf course, a museum of natural sciences, and a kiddie train for the young ones. It's a full day of fun in the heart of downtown.

Buffalo Bayou Park offers areas where you can hike, relax, picnic, let the kids run and play, and even go kayaking—and it's among the most Instagrammable places in Houston. You can tackle running trails to get in some exercise, sit in the serene grassy areas, and even play a game of volleyball on sand courts. It also offers gorgeous views of the city skyline as a backdrop.

This park is a highly unique combination of beauty from nature juxtaposed with human-made beauty covering 160 acres of land in the center of downtown. It's sure to be a highlight of your social media feeds with plenty of photo opportunities.

Smither Park is a unique combination of an urban park and public art installation with mosaic walking paths, swings, structures, and sculptures made from repurposed materials. The park has an outdoor theater where public performances and workshops take place. The swings are mounted to sculptured frames with an entire rainbow of colors and alien worlds full of shapes and patterns.

The park is a monument to the idea of reduce, reuse, and recycle, and you can often see the artists at work adding to the quirky structures herein. You can see rocket ships, goldfish, octopi, and other figures among its many mosaics, all right in the heart of the downtown area.

The Dandelion Fountain is a unique water feature in the form of a white puff dandelion, and it's sure to inspire conversation in your Instagram feed. This interesting fountain is an ideal space to have your loved one pose or to take a selfie, and it's a great space to cool off from the summer heat with the constant mist blowing all around. It continually spurts water from each of its dozens of spires, and at night it's illuminated with colored lights.

The fountain can be found in the heart of the 160-acre Bayou Buffalo Park right in the middle of the downtown area. That puts it within easy walking distance of many local restaurants, points of interest, and shops.

The Biscuit Paint Wall offers photo opportunities of a stunning public art installation formed of rainbow-colored drip paints in the heart of Upper Kirby, 10 minutes from downtown. The wall is in the middle of the Biscuit Home parking lot, so it's hard to miss. It gives the illusion of a rain shower made of a rainbow of color, and it's a solid option to add that splash of bright, feel-good imagery to your Instagram feed.

The Paint Wall is open to the public all day and all night, but due to crowds moving through the neighborhood, it's best to check it out Sunday evenings or on a weekday in the middle of the day for the best, unobstructed view .

Graffiti Park, located on Leeland Street, offers almost 2 miles of stunning street art, putting it among the most popular places to capture this popular art form from up-and-coming artists. If you're into populating your Instagram feed with urban exploration images, graffiti is a must-include element, and this is a destination for some of the best street artists around.

The murals here cover entire buildings, and you'll see everything from tagging to inspirational artwork. This park is a bit of a hidden gem that isn't listed in standard visitor guides, but it's located in the heart of midtown in central Houston. Most of the graffiti here was painted as part of an authorized Houston Mural Experience Mural Festival.

The Cloud Column in downtown Houston is a gigantic silver egg that endlessly reflects the sky and surroundings, and it's sure to make an impact on your feed. The sculpture is a public art installation at the Museum of Fine Art on the grounds of the Glassell School of Art, and you won't need tickets to see it. It has been called Houston's answer to the Chicago Bean and even carries the nickname "El Frijole," or The Bean.

It's often compared to its sister sculpture because both are the work of the same artist, Sir Anish Kapoor. The Cloud Column looks almost like an alien spacecraft sitting right in the heart of the city.

Color Factory Houston offers endless possibilities for photos, with each room organized by color patterns that tell dozens of stories from important local artists. A trip to the museum here even comes with a special photo chip for the facility's cameras, so you can get photos when you leave. You can also snap your own photographs to complement the official ones, which gives you endless choices for your feed.

This family-friendly experience is sure to fire your imagination, and you'll even find sweet treats like candy, macaroons, and frozen yogurt in each room. It's just about 12 minutes southwest of downtown.

McGovern Centennial Gardens offers a photo spot at a lavish human-made waterfall that looks like something out of a science fiction movie. The granite waterfall cascades down a giant grassy mound with a spiral path that you can walk up, so you can get shots from the reflecting pool at the bottom or from the top looking down.

The falls are just the highlight, however. The gardens cover 15 acres and offer colorful tended flowers, a sculpture promenade, and fantastic city views. It's just 11 minutes to the south of central downtown.