Freeman Ranch

San Marcos Academy or SMA (also known as San Marcos Baptist Academy or SMBA) is a private, coeducational, college preparatory Christian school that is affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and the Texas Association of Boarding Schools. The academy was founded in 1907; its mission is to educate young men and women within a nurturing community based upon Christian values. The academy accepts boarding students in grades 6–12 and day students in grades K-12. Enrollment in 2009 was 274, with about 75% in the residence program. The school is located in the Texas Hill Country in San Marcos, Texas, United States, south of Austin, and north of San Antonio. San Marcos Academy is one of the oldest boarding schools in the state of Texas, and was established in 1907 by Texas Baptists with the support of the city of San Marcos. The academy's first president was James Milton Carroll. The academy has students matriculate at a wide range of colleges and universities.

The Heart of Texas Wildlife Trail is a state-designated system of trails and wildlife sanctuaries in Central Texas in the United States. It is one of the four major wildlife trail systems designated by the State of Texas. The trail system is divided into two main groupings of wildlife viewing sites. The first stretches from the Coleman area, near Abilene, through Austin and San Antonio, to Laredo. The second is a cluster in the Texas Hill Country and southwest Rio Grande Valley bounded roughly by San Angelo, Del Rio, and Fredericksburg.

Wonder World is a natural theme park located in San Marcos, Texas. The park's primary attraction is Wonder Cave, an ancient earthquake cave and Recorded Texas Historic Landmark. Other attractions include an anti-gravity house, a trackless motor train, and a wildlife park.

The Wittliff Collections, located on the seventh floor of the Albert B. Alkek Library at Texas State University, was founded by William D. Wittliff in 1987. The Wittliff Collections include the Southwestern Writers Collection and the Southwestern & Mexican Photography Collection.

The McCoy College of Business Administration is the business school of Texas State University. The college offers curriculum for both undergraduate and graduate students and receives its business accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Established in 1968, Texas State's business school was originally known as the College of Business Administration. Following a $20 million gift from local businessman and wife Emmett and Miriam McCoy in 2004, the school was formally renamed the Emmett and Miriam McCoy College of Business Administration. The endowment, now administered by the McCoy College of Business Development Foundation, provides distinguished professorships, scholarships to both undergraduates and graduates, and program development. Later, the McCoys were awarded honorary doctorates, being the seventh and eighth individuals receiving such awards from Texas State University. The College contains five departments: Accounting; Computer information systems and QMST; Marketing; Management; Finance and Economics.

The Albert B. Alkek Library is the main central library of Texas State University. The Wittliff collections of Southwestern Writers and Southwestern & Mexican Photography is located on the seventh floor of the Alkek Library The university's library was named, in 1991, for an alumnus who became an oilman, rancher, and philanthropist, Albert B. Alkek. The Albert B. Alkek Library serves as the main, central academic library supporting the Texas State University (then called Southwest Texas State University) community. As a storehouse for United States and Texas government documents, the library receives a large number of government publications from the state and 60% of all federal publications. The mission of the library, as stated by University Officials, "is to advance the teaching and research mission of the University and support students, faculty, staff and the greater community by providing patron‐centered services, comprehensive and diverse collections, individual and collaborative learning environments, innovative technologies, and opportunities to learn, create and discover."Among the Library's seven floors, students encounter over 1.5 million printed texts, over 2 million microfilm & audio-visual materials, 546,700 electronic books, 471 databases, 110,800+ electronic journals, University Archives, and curriculum materials approved by the Texas Education Agency for primary and secondary schools. In addition to the vast amount of resources, the Library encompasses niche collections which are rare to the University. These holdings include The Wittliff Collections housed on the Library's seventh floor, the King of the Hill archives, major work of significant writers such as Cormac McCarthy, Sandra Cisneros and Sam Shepard, and the Lonesome Dove collection.

Fort Street Presbyterian Church is a historic Presbyterian church building at 516 W. Hopkins Street in San Marcos, Texas. The late-Gothic Revival building was constructed in 1901 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

Dick's Classic Garage was an automobile museum in San Marcos, Texas. It was founded in 2009 by Dick Burdick, a Texas businessman and car collector, who also operated the now defunct Central Texas Museum of Automotive History in Rosanky, Texas. Dick's Classic Garage was inaugurated in 2009. It closed to the public on December 31, 2018. The museum showcases American vehicles and memorabilia from the 1930s though the 1950s and displays a 1948 Tucker Sedan (chassis number 1050; this is the lowest mileage Tucker with 0.4 miles on the odometer). The museum also includes a restoration area.

First United Methodist Church is a historic church at 129 W. Hutchison in San Marcos, Texas. An easily recognized landmark of the San Marcos skyline is the Carpenter Gothic sanctuary of First United Methodist Church. The sanctuary was built in 1893, but the congregation dates back to 1847 in the earliest days of the city of San Marcos. The present sanctuary is the third building to occupy this site. First United Methodist Church's historic 1893 sanctuary served as the architectural inspiration for the Old Main building at Texas State University.

The Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State (FACTS) is a 26-acre forensic anthropology research facility located on the Freeman Ranch in San Marcos, Texas. It is one of the seven extant body farms in the United States and the largest such forensics research facility in the world.

Texas State University is a public research university in San Marcos, Texas. Since its establishment in 1899, the university has grown to the second largest university in the Greater Austin metropolitan area and the fifth largest university in the state of Texas. Texas State University reached a record enrollment of 38,808 students in the 2016 fall semester, continuing a trend of enrollment growth over several years. The university offers more than 200 degree options from its ten colleges. Texas State is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and an emerging research university by the State of Texas. The university is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). Faculty from the various colleges have consistently been granted Fulbright Scholarships resulting in Texas State's being recognized as one of the top producing universities of Fulbright Scholars. The 36th president of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, graduated from the institution in 1930; Texas State University is the only college or university in Texas to have a U.S. president as an alumnus. Texas State's main campus consists of 245 buildings on 492 acres (1.99 km2) of hilly land along the San Marcos River. Additionally, it has a satellite campus at the Texas State University Round Rock Campus (RRC) in the greater north Austin area. The university operates the Science, Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) Park, a technology commercialization and applied research facility. The Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State is the largest forensics research facility in the world.Texas State University's intercollegiate sports teams, commonly known as the Bobcats, compete in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I and the Sun Belt Conference.

Old Main is a red-roofed Victorian Gothic building on the campus of Texas State University. Situated at one end of the quad, it was Texas State's first building, built in 1903, and remained the only building on campus until 1908. Old Main was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1983. It currently houses the offices for the School of Journalism and Mass Communication as well as the College of Fine Arts.