Day Trips from Dallas by Train and Bus (No Car Needed)
by Wanderu
Dallas got a lot more train in the past year: the Silver Line opened in October 2025 and stitched Plano, Addison, Carrollton and DFW Airport onto one 26-mile rail line. The regional day pass dropped to $9 in March 2026. It covers DART, the TRE, Trinity Metro and DCTA on one ticket. And Greyhound and FlixBus moved, to a terminal directly across from a DART station.
The 18 day trips below run in order of travel time. Live fares show on the routes Wanderu sells, and the day-pass trips list the agencies’ own fares.
Our 2018 version listed nine places you could reach from Dallas for under $20, and very little of it held up. Of the 2,398 bookings from Dallas on Wanderu in the past year, about one in seventy came in under $20. The two routes that still manage it with any regularity, Fort Worth and Mineola, are two of the thinnest on the page.
Megabus left Texas on August 16, 2024. One of the nine destinations doesn’t sell at all anymore, and three more had a single booking each. Memphis, the one we bragged about at $18.98, is a nine-hour bus at four and a half times that. So this version starts over from what Dallas books now, and it names the routes that are gone.
| Destination | Travel time | From |
|---|---|---|
| Fort Worth, TX | About 50 minutes by Amtrak or bus, about 55 on the TRE | $9 Amtrak$9 Regional day pass |
| Plano, TX | One Red Line ride from downtown, no transfer | $6 DART day pass |
| Grapevine, TX | Silver Line to DFW Airport North, then one TEXRail stop | $9 Regional day pass |
| Denton, TX | Green Line to Trinity Mills, then the A-train | $9 Regional day pass |
| Mineola, TX | About 1 hour 35 minutes on the Texas Eagle | $19 Amtrak |
| Waco, TX | About 1 hour 40 minutes by bus | $17 Bus |
| Tyler, TX | About 1 hour 50 minutes by bus | $19 Bus |
| Longview, TX | About 2 and a half hours on the Texas Eagle, 3 by Greyhound | $21 Amtrak$23 Bus |
| College Station, TX | About 3 hours 15 minutes by bus | $32 Bus |
| Austin, TX | About 3 and a half hours by bus, 6 and a half on the Texas Eagle | $26 Amtrak |
| Texarkana, TX and AR | About 3 and a half hours by Greyhound, just under 5 on the Texas Eagle | $28 Bus to Texarkana, TX$27 Amtrak to Texarkana, AR |
| Shreveport, LA | About 4 hours, Amtrak or Greyhound | $32 Amtrak$29 Bus |
| Oklahoma City, OK | About 4 hours by bus; 9 on Amtrak by way of Fort Worth | $27 Bus$36 Amtrak |
| Houston, TX | About 4 hours 20 minutes by bus | Bus |
| Temple, TX | About 4 and a half hours on last year’s Texas Eagle bookings | $19 Amtrak$23 Bus |
| San Antonio, TX | About 5 and a half hours by bus, 10 on the Texas Eagle | $31 Bus$30 Amtrak |
| Tulsa, OK | About 6 and a half hours by bus | $33 Bus |
| Little Rock, AR | Nearly 8 hours on the Texas Eagle | $49 Amtrak$115 Bus |
Where the trains and buses leave from
- Eddie Bernice Johnson Union Station (400 S. Houston St.): Amtrak’s Texas Eagle, the TRE to Fort Worth, and DART rail all share it. Skip DART’s Convention Center station: it closed January 5, 2026 for construction and won’t reopen until 2029.
- 9755 Harry Hines Blvd: Greyhound and FlixBus have boarded here since December 9, 2025, directly across from DART’s Bachman Station on the Green and Orange Lines. Our guide to the old Lamar Street terminal is now a history piece.
- Tornado Bus runs from its own stations at 535 E. Jefferson Blvd and 8630 E. R.L. Thornton Fwy. RedCoach, Turimex and Omnibus Express board at their own stops too, so check the address on your ticket before you pick a DART line.
Around the metro: the day pass trips
One ticket does all four of these. It’s the regional day pass: $9 since March 1, 2026, sold by DART, Trinity Metro and DCTA alike, and good on every train and bus the three agencies run.
Arlington, the suburb with two stadiums, is the exception: it still has no regular bus or train service, just a free trolley on event days and an on-demand van from $3. Wanderu’s Dallas to Arlington bus page sold nothing in the past year.
Globe Life Field and the Cowboys’ stadium are a short walk apart once you’re there. Getting there is the hard part.
Fort Worth, TX
About 50 minutes by Amtrak or bus, about 55 on the TRE
- Dallas to Fort Worth trainsfrom $9
- Dallas to Fort Worth buses
- Regional day pass$9
Fort Worth is the easy one. The Trinity Railway Express runs it Monday through Saturday on the $9 regional day pass, which also brings you home, with Sunday trains only during the State Fair of Texas. The Texas Eagle and the bus companies sell the hop too.
It’s the Dallas route that comes closest to what the 2018 page promised. Eight of the eleven bookings on Wanderu in the past year came in under $20, at a typical $15.
Fort Worth Central Station is the busiest Amtrak stop in Texas, with 136,888 travelers in fiscal 2025, and Sundance Square is a few blocks north of it. The same pass covers Trinity Metro’s buses.
Plano, TX
One Red Line ride from downtown, no transfer
- DART day pass$6
This one’s all DART, no Wanderu booking needed, and DART’s own fares are the cheap ones. A $3 three-hour pass covers the ride up; a $6 day pass covers the round trip. Those have been DART’s prices since March 1, 2025. The $9 regional pass only matters if you’re adding the TRE, TEXRail or the A-train to the day.
The Red Line runs straight from downtown to Downtown Plano Station at 15th Street and Avenue J, on the edge of Haggard Park and the historic downtown district. The Interurban Railway Museum nearby covers the homework.
The bigger news is the Silver Line, which opened October 25, 2025. It runs 26 miles from Plano across Richardson, Addison, Carrollton and Coppell to DFW Airport, every 30 minutes at peak and hourly otherwise. That gave the northern suburbs a crosstown line.
The Red Line transfer is CityLine/Bush in Richardson, the next stop south of Downtown Plano. McKinney, one town up, got a rail study in March 2026 and nothing to ride yet.
Grapevine, TX
Silver Line to DFW Airport North, then one TEXRail stop
- Regional day pass$9
It takes two trains and one pass. Ride the Green Line to Downtown Carrollton or the Red Line to CityLine/Bush and change to the Silver Line. Get off at DFW Airport North and take Trinity Metro’s TEXRail one stop to Grapevine/Main Street, where Main Street is the point and the station is on it.
TEXRail on its own is a $2 local ride, but the $9 regional pass covers the whole chain. It also lets you do the loop: TEXRail on to Fort Worth Central Station, then the TRE back to Dallas, with a Fort Worth dinner in the middle.
Denton, TX
Green Line to Trinity Mills, then the A-train
- Regional day pass$9
DCTA’s A-train has run 21 miles from Trinity Mills, at the end of the Green Line, to the Downtown Denton Transit Center since 2011. Trains go every half hour on weekdays and hourly on Saturdays, with no Sunday service. The regional pass covers both halves; the A-train alone is a $3 DCTA day pass.
Downtown Denton, with the courthouse square and two universities, is a walk from the station. The Highland Village/Lewisville Lake stop on the way is the stand-in for the Lewisville fare our 2018 list promised, which hasn’t had a booking since February 2019.
One to three hours
What the 2018 list never admitted: seven of its nine destinations were Amtrak Texas Eagle stops, five of them small East Texas and Central Texas towns. It was a train post in a bus costume. The Eagle’s East Texas stops are still where the cheap fares live, and the bus fills in the towns the train skips.
Mineola, TX
About 1 hour 35 minutes on the Texas Eagle
- Dallas to Mineola trainsfrom $19
The cheapest Texas Eagle ride past the metro on last year’s bookings, and the second of the two rides that still book under $20 often. Amtrak’s Texas Eagle is the whole story here. The typical Mineola fare on Wanderu in the past year was $21, the cheapest was $14, and five of the twelve bookings came in under $20.
In 2018 we had it at $15. Mineola is a small East Texas rail town, and the closest an Amtrak train gets to Tyler, which has no train station of its own.
Waco, TX
About 1 hour 40 minutes by bus
- Dallas to Waco busesfrom $17
Most Waco trips are Magnolia Market trips, and the bus gets you there. FlixBus carried most of the Dallas to Waco bookings on Wanderu in the past year, at a typical fare of about $31. One booking in twenty came in under $20.
No Amtrak train stops in Waco. The Texas Eagle’s nearest stop is McGregor, which the 2018 list quoted at $13 and which had exactly one booking in the past year. Ride the bus.
Tyler, TX
About 1 hour 50 minutes by bus
- Dallas to Tyler busesfrom $19
Tyler has no Amtrak train station, so you’re on the bus, at a typical fare of about $38 in the past year. Tyler State Park shows up on most driving lists of Dallas day trips, but the bus only gets you as far as town. Pair it with a rideshare if the park is the plan; downtown Tyler is the car-free version.
Longview, TX
About 2 and a half hours on the Texas Eagle, 3 by Greyhound
- Dallas to Longview trainsfrom $21
- Dallas to Longview busesfrom $23
Longview was the sixth most-booked destination from Dallas in the past year, and the train is why. Amtrak’s typical fare was about $25, the cheapest $18, and one booking in ten came in under $20. Greyhound’s typical ticket ran about $38. The station is also where Amtrak’s connecting buses toward Nacogdoches and Houston start, which makes Longview East Texas’s quiet rail junction.
Three to five hours: a long day, an easy overnight
Several of Dallas’s busiest corridors sit in this band. You can do any of them as a morning-out, evening-back trip. Pack a toothbrush anyway.
College Station, TX
About 3 hours 15 minutes by bus
- Dallas to College Station busesfrom $32
No train, so it’s the bus, and mostly FlixBus on Wanderu in the past year, at a typical fare of about $43. On a fall Saturday the town is a football game with a university attached. The rest of the year it’s a campus worth a wander and a college town’s worth of cheap dinners.
Austin, TX
About 3 and a half hours by bus, 6 and a half on the Texas Eagle
Austin drew 492 bookings on Wanderu in the past year, Dallas’s second-biggest corridor, at a typical fare of about $46. The 2018 page quoted a $16.75 average. The only Austin bookings under $20 all year were six September 2026 legs on one bus company, at fares around $3.
Everyone else paid real money, and the way to pay less of it is notice: bus tickets booked two weeks out ran about $38, against $52 the day before.
The train is the scenic option, not the fast one: the Texas Eagle leaves Union Station once a day and takes about 6 and a half hours. At a typical $30 last year, it undercut the typical bus fare, even booked two weeks out. Austin’s own light rail cleared its federal environmental review in January 2026, with construction due in 2027 and trains around 2033.
Texarkana, TX and AR
About 3 and a half hours by Greyhound, just under 5 on the Texas Eagle
- Dallas to Texarkana, TX busesfrom $28
- Dallas to Texarkana, AR trainsfrom $27
The bus goes to the Texas side, at a typical $41 on last year’s bookings. The Texas Eagle stops on the Arkansas side, at a typical $35. Texarkana Union Station, at 100 E. Front Street, sits on the state line and handled 7,037 Amtrak travelers in fiscal 2025. Stand on the platform with a foot in each state, then go find lunch.
Shreveport, LA
About 4 hours, Amtrak or Greyhound
- Dallas to Shreveport trainsfrom $32
- Dallas to Shreveport busesfrom $29
Amtrak, not the bus, sold most of Dallas’s Shreveport bookings in the past year, at a typical $39 against Greyhound’s $51. There’s no direct train to Shreveport, so Amtrak’s ticket includes a connecting bus for the last stretch, and last year it still came out cheaper.
Once you’re there, the newest thing on the road is SporTran Evolve, a self-driving city bus unveiled August 27, 2026 and the only one in Louisiana. It still carries a safety driver.
Oklahoma City, OK
About 4 hours by bus; 9 on Amtrak by way of Fort Worth
- Dallas to Oklahoma City busesfrom $27
- Dallas to Oklahoma City trainsfrom $36
Greyhound, FlixBus and RedCoach all run the bus, at a typical fare of about $48 last year, and it’s the ride to take. Amtrak sells it too, but the routing is the Texas Eagle to Fort Worth and the Heartland Flyer north, about nine hours.
The Flyer had a close call in 2026. Both states left it out of their budgets, and Amtrak issued a discontinuance notice. Then TxDOT moved $4.2 million on August 25, 2026, and the train is now funded through the end of 2027. That buys time, but it doesn’t guarantee the train.
The OKC Streetcar went permanently fare-free on August 7, 2026, and its two downtown loops cover Bricktown, the Arts District, Midtown and Automobile Alley.
Houston, TX
About 4 hours 20 minutes by bus
Our single biggest route from Dallas: 680 bookings in the past year, split among FlixBus, Tornado Bus, RedCoach and Greyhound, at a typical fare of about $53. This corridor rewards planning more than any big corridor we measured. Tickets booked two weeks out ran about $38; tickets booked the day before ran about $57.
Don’t book the train. Amtrak’s Dallas to Houston ticket is a 22-hour routing, and the Texas Central bullet train that was going to fix that has no timeline as of September 2026. In Houston, the METRORail Red Line runs straight to the Museum District.
Temple, TX
About 4 and a half hours on last year’s Texas Eagle bookings
- Dallas to Temple trainsfrom $19
- Dallas to Temple busesfrom $23
Temple is a 2018 holdover that still half-works. Its depot is a daily Texas Eagle stop between Fort Worth and San Antonio. Amtrak’s typical fare on Wanderu in the past year was about $26, with one booking in six under $20 and the cheapest at $19, against $15 on the old list.
Most Temple bookings are the train, but buses sell it too, for the days the Eagle’s once-a-day timing doesn’t fit.
Make it a weekend
Austin and Houston work there and back if you leave early. These three need the night.
San Antonio, TX
About 5 and a half hours by bus, 10 on the Texas Eagle
- Dallas to San Antonio busesfrom $31
- Dallas to San Antonio trainsfrom $30
At a typical $60 by bus last year, San Antonio was the priciest of Dallas’s big three corridors, and the third-biggest (211 bookings in the past year). The Texas Eagle was the bargain at a typical $37, but it’s a ten-hour ride, so it’s a night there either way. The 2018 list said $18.88. That was a different decade of bus fares.
Downtown has gotten easier without a car. The Local, a free electric trolley, loops the center, and the Alamo Promenade opened in November 2025 as a walking gateway to the plaza. VIA buses are $1.30 a ride or $2.75 for the day. Our guide to free things to do in San Antonio covers the rest of the weekend.
Tulsa, OK
About 6 and a half hours by bus
- Dallas to Tulsa busesfrom $33
Bus only, and a long one, at a typical $61 in the past year. Tulsa has been promising a Route 66 bus rapid transit line along 11th Street, the old Route 66 itself, for the centennial; as of September 2026 it hasn’t broken ground. Tulsa’s city bus system, MetroLink, is also moving to sell its downtown station on Denver Avenue. Greyhound stops at its own station, 317 S. Detroit Ave, so check the address on your ticket before you plan the walk to the hotel.
Little Rock, AR
Nearly 8 hours on the Texas Eagle
- Dallas to Little Rock trainsfrom $49
- Dallas to Little Rock busesfrom $115
The biggest bus-versus-train gap here: Tornado Bus’s typical fare was about $125, more than twice Amtrak’s $53, and Amtrak booked two weeks out ran about $48. The Texas Eagle pulls into the 1921 Union Station, and the METRO Streetcar links downtown, the River Market, the Clinton Presidential Center and Argenta across the river. Stay the night. It’s worth one.
The smaller stops worth knowing
Seven more places Wanderu sells from Dallas aren’t big enough for a write-up. San Marcos goes by FlixBus or the Texas Eagle, The Woodlands by FlixBus, Killeen by Amtrak or bus, Norman by Greyhound or Amtrak, and Wichita Falls by bus. Marshall is on the Texas Eagle, at a typical $28 on last year’s bookings. Cleburne had one booking in the past year, too few for a typical fare; its live price is below.
- San Marcos, TX by busfrom $33
- San Marcos, TX by trainfrom $28
- The Woodlands, TXfrom $28
- Killeen, TX by trainfrom $41
- Killeen, TX by busfrom $20
- Norman, OK by busfrom $28
- Norman, OK by trainfrom $33
- Wichita Falls, TXfrom $27
- Marshall, TXfrom $22
- Cleburne, TXfrom $14
What’s still under $20 (the honest list)
The 2018 page listed nine places under $20. As of September 2026, two still deliver by share of last year’s bookings: Fort Worth (eight of eleven) and Mineola (five of twelve). Longview, Marshall and Temple manage about one in ten; apart from Austin’s six, nothing else manages more than two.
Austin’s six under-$20 bookings were one bus company’s fares, around $3. Don’t count on them. What keeps Dallas cheap is the $9 regional day pass: Fort Worth, Plano, Grapevine and Denton, out and back, on the TRE, DART, TEXRail and the A-train. The old format still runs in our under-$20 guides for other cities.
What the 2018 list lost
Lewisville is the one of the nine that never made it to 2026: its last booking was on February 18, 2019, and the A-train’s lake stop is the replacement. Mesquite, which the old page’s intro named as a cheap example, has never had a booking from Dallas on Wanderu. Memphis is still bookable, but at nine hours and a typical $86 it stopped being a day trip and an under-$20 story at once.
Cleburne, McGregor and Taylor are still Texas Eagle stops and each had exactly one booking in the past year, which is a fact, not a fare. Eight years on, the cheap buses have come and gone and the Texas Eagle is still stopping.
How to pay less (what 2,398 bookings say)
We looked at every Dallas departure booked on Wanderu between September 2025 and September 2026. Four things held up:
- Plan on paying more than $20. About one booking in seventy came in under $20. Fort Worth, Mineola, Longview and Austin’s six fares of about $3 accounted for most of them. On the five biggest routes, the typical fare last year ran $41 to $60.
- Book ahead, especially for the bus. Houston bus tickets ran about $57 booked the day before and $38 two weeks out; Austin went from $52 to $38. The train rewards notice too: Little Rock slid from $62 to $48, though Shreveport barely moved. Our guide to Amtrak’s fare types explains what you give up with the cheapest ones.
- The month doesn’t matter. Month by month on Houston and Austin, no month came out reliably cheaper.
- The train is cheaper more often than you’d guess. Amtrak beat the bus on price to Longview, Texarkana, Shreveport, Temple and Little Rock, and to Austin and San Antonio too, even against a bus booked two weeks out. What the bus wins is time: to Austin, Houston, San Antonio and Oklahoma City it’s hours faster, and to Houston it’s the cheaper ride as well, with Oklahoma City about even on price.
For the version of this advice that works from any city, read our guide to finding the cheapest tickets.
Frequently asked questions
What are good places for a 2-day trip from Dallas?
San Antonio: about 5 and a half hours by bus or a ten-hour ride on the Texas Eagle, with a free downtown trolley at the other end. Austin and Houston are 3 and a half to 4 and a half hours by bus and both work better with a night in them. Little Rock is nearly eight hours on the Texas Eagle and rewards the trip, and Tulsa is about 6 and a half hours by bus.
Where can you go for a 3-day vacation from Dallas without a car?
Ride the Texas Eagle south and stack two cities: Austin one day, San Antonio the next, and the train home. Or go the other way to Little Rock and give the River Market and the Clinton Center a full day each. Houston with a day in the Museum District on METRORail fills three days easily. Oklahoma City’s fare-free streetcar makes a car-free long weekend simple, though its train link runs through Fort Worth and takes about nine hours, so ride the bus up.
What is 1 hour from Dallas by train or bus?
Fort Worth, about 50 minutes by Amtrak or bus and a $9 regional day pass on the TRE. Plano is one Red Line ride from downtown. Denton is the Green Line plus DCTA’s A-train from Trinity Mills, and Grapevine is the Silver Line plus one TEXRail stop, all on the same $9 regional pass. Mineola (about 1 hour 35 minutes on the Texas Eagle) and Waco (about 1 hour 40 by bus) are the first intercity trips past the hour mark.
What are quick trips from Dallas without a car?
Fort Worth is the quickest intercity trip on this page: about 50 minutes by Amtrak or bus, or 55 on the TRE’s $9 day pass. Past the metro, Mineola is about 1 hour 35 minutes on the Texas Eagle and had the train’s cheapest fare on last year’s bookings. Waco has Magnolia Market, about 1 hour 40 minutes by bus. Tyler (1 hour 50 minutes by bus) and Longview (2 and a half hours on the Texas Eagle) round out the list.
Is the train or the bus cheaper from Dallas?
Off the big corridors it’s usually the train. Amtrak’s typical fares to Longview, Temple, Texarkana, Shreveport and Little Rock all came in under the bus in the past year of Wanderu bookings. On the big corridors the bus is hours faster, but last year the Texas Eagle was cheaper to Austin and San Antonio if you could give it the day. The bus gets cheaper with notice: Houston and Austin tickets booked two weeks out ran a quarter to a third less than day-before tickets.
What day trips from Dallas are under $20?
Two rides still book under $20 with any regularity: Fort Worth (eight of eleven bookings in the past year) and Mineola on the Texas Eagle (five of twelve). Longview, Marshall and Temple come next, at about one in ten. Of the 2,398 bookings from Dallas on Wanderu in the past year, about one in seventy came in under $20. The workaround is the $9 regional day pass, which covers Fort Worth, Plano, Grapevine and Denton on the TRE, DART, DCTA and TEXRail.
The “from” prices on this page refresh from Wanderu’s route data. Each is the cheapest fare recently available on that route, the same figure its route page shows. “Typical” fares are Wanderu bookings from Dallas, September 2025 to September 2026, per passenger, the full price paid, with multi-seat bookings divided by seats. Counts are bookings, and a booking can cover more than one seat. Travel times on those routes are the median of the same bookings. Local train and bus fares are the agencies’ own published fares as of September 2026.
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