Today was my first time roaming around Dallas since I moved to Texas and I definitely took a different approach compared to other cities I’ve visited. I took a bike tour to check out some hidden art that you may not be able to see when driving around in your car.

I didn’t have my own bike so I rented a bike from a new company that I’m EXTREMELY excited for.

It’s called: LimeBike

LimeBikes are rental bikes around Dallas that you can ride around and drop off anywhere. Each of them have a GPS that allows you to find the closest bike in your area. They also have codes you can scan that allows the app to know which bike you’re using, how long you’ve used it and how far you’ve rode on it. Once you’re done with the bike, you just pull down the red lever and the bike locks up and charges you on the app. It does require you to put your card on file on the app, but it’s only $1 every 30 minutes and if you clink the link here you can get three rides free!

There’s also an alternative bike company that does that same thing called Spin.

The tour I went on was arranged by a bike group in Dallas named Bike Friendly Cedars. Everyone in the group were super chill people and extremely friendly, so I recommend checking them out if you’re into biking while in Dallas.

The tour consisted of checking out graffiti art, beautiful murals and even some metal art around Deep Ellum (right next to downtown Dallas).

The art we checked out first was a bunch of crazy amazing graffiti art (above). There were buildings upon buildings just covered in bright colored graffiti that was hard to keep from staring at because there was so much to look at. After checking out colorful graffiti, we checked out some history. The black and white graffiti (below) of a girl sitting down was actually published in a magazine about 10 or so years ago. It’s painted on the side of a hole-in-the-wall convenience store.

After checking out some history, we went by a little sandwich shop that just recently opened and had a brand new mural painted to the side (below).

One of my favorites that we saw was the elephant mural in Deep Ellum. The whole side of the building was filled with elephants – each of them unique in their own way. I loved that they gave it a watercolor theme. It was SO beautiful. Definitely Instagram worthy.

Another favorite was the robot painting. Between the bright colors and how tall the building is, it makes it extremely noticeable from a distance.

The robot painting wasn’t the only colorful painting. There was a whole wall of nothing but geometric colors. It screamed out “I have to stand in front of this and take a picture.”

There was only one metal art piece that we got to see and it was this giant robot. It also had little metal birds surrounding it (you can only see one in the picture) and if you look closely, you can see the real bird sitting on the statue which shows just how big this thing is.

Out of all the different graffiti, realistic artwork is my top pick. This painting of a man wearing a mask looks so realistic with a splash of unrealistic skin coloring and I LOVE it for some weird reason. It reminds me of the rapper Schoolboy Q’s album cover for “Oxymoron.”

And then last but not least, the most simple yet most meaningful mural of them all. Just know that you – or even a simple painting – can change the world!

What’s crazy is that this was nowhere near all the art Deep Ellum has to offer! So if you decide to take time to come check out Dallas’ art, be sure to plan a whole day for it. You definitely won’t regret it!