Where Texas doubles for somewhere else; foreign and domestic.

Scouting is my favorite part of the job. I do it on days off and on the way to other things, and I'm always looking. Here is what Texas can stand in for, with the official facts next to my own eye, and the two things it can't fake, because a locations post that only sells is a brochure.

The Rockies: the Davis Mountains. 

High in West Texas, the Davis Mountains sit at 5,000 to 6,000 feet, formed by volcanic activity 25 to 30 million years ago, with winters below freezing and occasional snow, per Texas Parks and Wildlife. They are not grand the way the Colorado Rockies are grand. But the rugged land is an easy one-to-one for anything short of a wide establishing shot. Play the establishing shot somewhere else or on a plate. Everything from the medium wide in, the Davis Mountains will give you, and the crew sleeps in Fort Davis instead of a resort.

👉 View Photo of the Davis Mountains Landscape

Provence and western Spain: the Hill Country. 

The Edwards Plateau, which everyone calls the Hill Country, is stony hills, steep canyons and springs cut into limestone over millions of years, per Parks and Wildlife. Rolling limestone hills and a hot, dry summer are the same ingredients that make Provence look like Provence and the dry hill towns of western Spain look like themselves. Add a vineyard and you have southern France without a customs form.

👉 View Photo of the Texas Hill Country Hills

The Outback: Palo Duro Canyon. 

Parks and Wildlife calls it the Grand Canyon of Texas, the second largest canyon in the country, in the heart of the Panhandle. The red clay, the deep fissures and the empty horizon read as central Australia to anyone who hasn't been to central Australia, and to most who have. The light at the end of the day is the whole reason to go.

👉 View Photo of the Red Cliffs of Palo Duro

The Amazon: Caddo Lake. 

On the Louisiana line, bald cypress trees draped with Spanish moss tower over Big Cypress Bayou across 26,810 acres of lake, per Parks and Wildlife. Maze-like bayous, ancient trees, water where the ground should be. It evokes a flooded, primeval rainforest better than anything else in the country that isn't actually one. Bring a boat department.

👉 View Photo of the Flooded Forest at Caddo Lake

The Caribbean: South Padre Island. 

A barrier island at the southern tip of the state with 34 miles of white sand, emerald water and more than 300 days of sunshine, per the island's own visitors bureau, which calls it the only tropical island in Texas. Turquoise water, windswept dunes and a year-round warm season. It is the Caribbean without the flight, the customs line or the hurricane insurance rider, though it has its own weather and you should read the calendar.

👉 View Photo of the South Padre Emerald Coast

Europe, in pockets 

This is the part people don't believe until they stand in it.

Croatia: Adriatica Village, McKinney. 

A 45-acre Croatian-inspired village north of Dallas, built around a private lake with Old-World architecture and cobblestone-style streets, per Visit McKinney. Its bell tower was inspired by the one in Supetar, Croatia, and the Bella Donna Chapel sits on its own little island in the lake. It is a real neighborhood with real residents, which means real permits and real neighbors.

👉 View Photo of the Lakeside Croatian Architecture

Alsace: Castroville 

Founded in 1844 by Henri Castro with Alsatian settlers, 25 miles west of San Antonio, and called the Little Alsace of Texas, per the city and Texas Time Travel. The Steinbach Haus was built between 1618 and 1648 in Wahlbach, France, taken apart, shipped to Houston, trucked to Castroville in 1998 and reopened in 2002, per the house's own history. The Texas Historical Commission calls it a demonstration of pioneer half-timbered construction. It's a seventeenth-century Alsatian farmhouse with a Texas zip code.

👉 View Photo of the 17th-Century Steinbach Haus

Germany: Fredericksburg and New Braunfels

Both founded by German settlers under the Adelsverein, New Braunfels in 1845 and Fredericksburg in 1846, per the Texas State Historical Association. The settlers' early homes were replaced by fachwerk houses, timber frames filled with rock and plastered over, and downtown New Braunfels was listed on the National Register this year specifically for that German vernacular construction, per the Historical Commission. Biergartens and bakeries did the rest. For a Bavarian village, you will not do better in North America.

👉 View Photo of Germanic Vernacular Architecture

Venice: the Las Colinas canals, Irving 

The Mandalay Canal and Lake Carolyn run gondola cruises year-round, per Irving's visitors bureau. It doubles for Venice the way a good hotel lobby doubles for a good hotel lobby: at night, tight, with the right music. Don't push it in daylight.

👉 View Photo of the Mandalay Waterfront Canals

A note on the photos.

Every image on this page is mine or is credited to the person who shot it, with permission. Stock photography of Texas is how a locations post lies, and I'd rather run fewer pictures than one that isn't real.

If you have a brief, send it. Reading a script for its locations is the part of this work I'd do for free, and the producers page explains the part I don't. For what stands ready-built, see stage space in Texas. For what a local phone call buys you on location day, see the producer of record.