We will be relocating from west Texas over to the Buda/Dripping Springs/Wimberley area in the near future.

What can you tell me about Dripping Springs and Wimberley, good and/or bad? Other areas that would be worth considering are also welcome to be suggested.

• The wife will have to commute to Buda 3 to 4 days a week. I work remotely.
• Being part of an active church with a good children and youth ministry is vital.
• We are conservative politically.
• Youth baseball and golf is a big part of our life.
• I'd expect a few times a month we'd have to head into the Austin area. I don't care for traffic, but do understand it is unavoidable when needing to go into Austin or San Antonio.
• We'd like to have neighborhoods available to us with young families (well, old parents, elementary age kids).
• Home Values and/or Property Tax Rate differences between Wimberley and Dripping Springs?
• True population size differences between the two towns? Growth rate?

Thank you for any time you take to respond, even if it isn't helpful.

To me, the most dangerous highway in Central Texas is the stretch from Dripping Springs to Austin on 290. The long term construction project should help with that, but that monthly commute may be a headache.

They are both in Hays County and relatively close, although I think that the commute to Buda may be a little easier from Wimberley by going through Kyle.

I am sure that you can find the sports and Church communities to your liking in either location, although the Austin influence is doing it's part to turn those places blue.

Wimberley just seems to have a smaller town feel to me than Drippin.

Drippin' schools used to be pretty good and they likely still are. Not Westlake good, but better than Lake Travis. Not that there's a huge difference unless your kid is an all out gunner. Wimberley is a bit of a tourist trap and the weekend crowds can be annoying.

Have a few friends that live in Driftwood. They like that area well.

Moved from Midland to Drip last year. Never lived in Wimberley, but have been there plenty. Drip schools are very good. If public schools are a priority, I believe Drip wins. We also looked at the Eanes (Westlake area), but that district has fallen off the left side of the poltical "cliff".

Houses are typically more expensive in Dripping Springs ISD compared to surrounding school districts. This doesn't mean the surrounding districts are necessarily bad, just that DSISD seems to command a premium.

Going to Buda from Drip or Wimberley won't take you through Austin unless you are on the far east side of Drip. Wimberley will be an easier commute to Buda though. Drip to Austin is probably a little quicker than Wimberley. For the few times a month we go to Austin, Drip feels like the perfect distance. Far enough to feel like we're not in Austin, but close enough that it's convenient when you need to go. Commuting to Austin daily would suck though.

We also would like a church with a good youth group, but haven't found it in Dripping Springs. Austin Ridge has a satellite campus in Drip that is well attended and has a decent youth group, but not what I would consider great. We're at Redeemer DS which is tiny and has no formal youth group. We just hired a new pastor that my wife and I are very optimistic about. We're hoping growth and a youth group will follow.

Select youth baseball is life in the area, so you can find that either place. Rec youth baseball fades as kids get older almost being non-existent once you get to 12U. It's decent at 10U and younger, but all the serious families seem to go select around 8U.

There's not any golf in Drip besides a driving range. We joined Driftwood Golf & Ranch club (have to buy a lot to join, but no deadline to build) which has a very nice course, but most of the amenities are under construction or future -planned. There are also courses in Bee Cave, Lakeway, and Southwest Austin, but I don't know how far those are or what it takes to get in. Wimberley is going to be closer to golf courses in San Marcos, at least one of which is public.

Any of the newer neighborhoods in Drip have lots of kids. I would guess the same is true of Wimberley or anywhere else west of Austin.

I can't tell where Kyle/Buda/San Marcos each begin and end, so I would view it as one large populated area. Drip and Wimberley are somewhat isolated, so they have more of a small town feel. Based on kids sports and school districts, Drip feels larger, but DSISD reaches far beyond Dripping Springs.

When we were shopping (summer of '22) Dripping Springs was generally more expensive than Wimberley. I would guess property taxes are similar, but you can check Hays CAD for specific properties in either town.

I can't speak to Wimberley, but the City of Dripping Springs ("CODS") council and administration feels like a joke. The only service CODS provides (not including impediments to development like zoning and code enforcement) is wastewater and they don't really even provide that since they're tied up in a perpetual lawsuit keeping them from providing wastewater services to any development in the last several years. CODS doesn't have police, fire, EMT, (all emergency services provided by county) water supply, power, gas, solid waste (all utilities besides waste water* provided by other entities), library, public transportation, or any service typical of other cities. They do have a parks department, but most of the youth sports fields are provided by other entities and the nicer playground type parks are neighborhood owned. In spite of all this, Drip seems to grow faster than Wimberley. Most of the real estate folks around Drip think growth will really take off if the wastewater situation ever gets worked out.

Here is my way oversimplified view of them as someone that lives in Austin but has lots of family in Drippings Springs:

Buda - Boring suburbia, will feel like you live anywhere else in the US.
Dripping Springs - Has turned into a suburb of Austin but still has some of that Hill Country Charm.
Wimberly - Still feels like a small town to me.

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We also looked at the Eanes (Westlake area), but that district has fallen off the left side of the poltical "cliff".

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You can't speak for Westlake either. That's the biggest pile of BS I've seen posted.

My office is in Westlake. My experience that there is a nice mix of views in this area with very few being extreme.

Dripping is a much bigger town/city than Wimberly, and it's only getting larger by the day. Case in point, Dripping is about to get a second HEB... and they are about to get a Target store. Wimberly doesn't have any. Wimberly has like what, 3 legitimate restaurants and everything shuts down after certain hours. So to me the two towns are not in the same stratosphere.

Dripping will have much nicer school than Wimberly.

Driving from Dripping or Wimberly to Buda is probably a wash... both will require you to take FM roads.

You may find more hippies in Wimberly, but may be a close race

If you're talking about the HEB at 290 and Nutty Brown, it opened quite a while ago. I'm not sure if it was a year ago, but definitely in 2023.

I'm not aware of a Target being built in Drip. That would be pretty newsworthy. Have any details?

Wimberley resident here.

Wimberley still feels, and is, much smaller than Dripping. The schools are good but like everywhere in Texas, budgets are tight and turnover is unfortunately high. Sill, I am overall happy with our kids' experience at WISD.

No city property tax in Wimberley limits, though I kinda wish we did because the roads are a mess.

Politically Wimberley is pretty purple, and IMO, that is a good thing.

There's a great restaurant in Wimberley run by Ags, The Leaning Pear. I happen to know the folks.

Also, it is WimberlEy. Leaving out that second E will get you run out of town.

Excellent post, thank you! What about water issues in the region? I understand Wimb is stage 4, drip/driftwood aren't too far from that area. Is it a big concern to the community? I'm looking into properties with wells, does that solve my personal use water problems or are wells in the region prone to drying up and constant deeper digging. Thank you in advance!