Hi all, I've got 17 hours and need to stay fairly close to the airport (IAH). Anyone have any recommendations on what I can do in a short period of time? How about hotels? Places to eat (not expensive, just good food). Thanks all for your time.

You need to give us a little bit more info - Day of the week and timeframe you will be there will help, in addition to what your interests are. Reason being is that NOTHING is all toghether in Houston. There is theater, concerts, and sports in Downtown, but the museums are else, as is excellent shopping.
Nothing is around the aiport, so I hope you are renting a car, which you will need to see anything.
Give us some more info, and you'll get recomendations suited to your interests.

Take one of the shuttles that stop all over town and park it at THE GALLERIA! Shop and then have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Check out the rates at the Westin Galleria. I once stayed there for $99.

Hi Anthony,

I arrive on a Thursday evening and will depart on a Friday morning. Eating is good, shopping, jazz, blues...whatever. I will most likely stay at the Hyatt, the "Wooded" one. Thanks for your reply, by the way!

Hmm..........

Depending on when you get in on Thursday evening, it sounds like maybe an evening downtown might be a good choice for you.

BTW, although I don't live in Houston, I have been there for iz a couple of times, one trip lasting 2 wks, so I do have some advice to give you.

The downtown area of Houston now has a lively arts area. There is the a beautiful opera house, theaters, and a complex called Bayou Place. Bayou Palce was the old Houston Convention Center,which has now moved to newer digs. So they took the old place and carved out movie theaters showing Art House movies; a concert space, and several restaurants and clubs.

My advice would be to do an events search on citysearch.com to see what events, concerts, plays, etc, are taking place that evening, and if it meets your time frames. If not, again, there are clubs & restaurants at Bayou Place you can go to for a nice evening out. One of my favorite places downtown is called 'Sambucca';
they serve great seafood, and also have live jazz performances. It's a great looking restaurant too! It is downtown, near but not in Bayou Place.

As someone else suggested, you can also spend the evening at The Galleria, which is basically one of those upscale shopping mall places.

Regarding transportation, you are not there very long, so it's a toss-up whether you should rent or use taxi/car service. Pricewise, I think it would be more cost effective to rent a car, since, distances from the airport hotels to either Downtown or the Galleria are far. If you use a car service/taxi, you MUST call for them in advance, especially for your return trips. They do not troll the streets - trust me.

I attended a concert downtown with a collegue a couple of yrs ago, and when the concert let out around 11:45pm, we couldn't find a taxi anywhere! We could have technically walked to our downtown hotel, but it would have been a 15/20 min walk, and it was late. We decided to go to a nearby hotel downtown , figuring it would be easier to get a cab there. When the doorman found out what we needed, he said there won't be any cabs at this hour anymore, but offered to have the hotel's car service drive us to OUR hotel! Talk about service!