Bandera County is working ranch country that learned to take visitors, and it has been doing both for a hundred years without deciding which it is.
Five towns along the Medina River and the ranch roads above it. Cattle outfits and guest ranches sit on the same roads, and have since San Antonio families started paying to spend a week playing cowboy. San Antonio is less than an hour away. It does not feel like it.
The Medina is the quieter river here — generally shallower and slower than the Frio or Guadalupe, and without nearly as much summer traffic. Bandera is the anchor and the reason most people come; the other four are why some of them stay longer.
What people actually ask for.
Cabins on the river, ranch houses in the hills, and places close enough to walk to Main Street.
If this is not quite it.