Day Trips from Houston by Bus and Train (No Car Needed)
by Wanderu
Houston has a reputation as the city you can’t leave without a car. It’s half true. Greyhound and FlixBus run out of the East End to most of the big cities in Texas and south Louisiana.
Amtrak’s Sunset Limited rolls through three days a week, toward San Antonio one way and New Orleans the other. The 13 trips below start with the quickest rides, with live fares wherever Wanderu sells the route. Galveston is the other half of the truth.
The 2018 edition sent you to seven places from Houston for under $20. None of those prices survived. Greyhound’s downtown terminal closed in 2023.
Megabus quit Texas on August 16, 2024. Grand Prairie fell off the map. And the fares moved. What follows runs on a year of Wanderu’s Houston bookings through September 2026 and on live fares.
| Destination | Travel time | From |
|---|---|---|
| Galveston, TX | By shuttle van only; no scheduled bus or train | Galveston Express shuttle |
| College Station and Bryan, TX | From about 1 hour 35 minutes by bus | $27 Bus to College Station |
| Beaumont, TX | About 1 hour 30 minutes on the bus runs booked in the past year | $85 Bus$20 Amtrak |
| Austin, TX | About 3 hours by bus | Bus |
| San Antonio, TX | About 3 and a half hours by bus, 5 hours on the Sunset Limited | $27 Bus$55 Amtrak |
| Lake Charles, LA | About 3 hours 20 minutes by train, about 2 and a half by bus | $27 Amtrak$24 Bus |
| Corpus Christi, TX | About 3 and a half hours by bus | $28 Bus |
| Lafayette, LA | From about 3 hours 45 minutes by bus, 5 hours on the train | $29 Bus$36 Amtrak |
| Dallas and Fort Worth, TX | From about 4 hours by bus to Dallas, about 5 hours 20 minutes to Fort Worth | $9 Bus to Fort Worth |
| Baton Rouge, LA | About 5 hours by bus | $32 Bus |
| New Orleans, LA | From about 6 hours by bus, 9 and a half on the train | $36 Bus$50 Amtrak |
| McAllen and Brownsville, TX | About 6 hours by bus to either | $37 Bus to McAllen$41 Bus to Brownsville |
| El Paso, TX | About 11 hours by bus, overnight on the Sunset Limited | $69 Bus$92 Amtrak |
Where the buses and trains leave from
- 7000 Harrisburg Blvd: the Greyhound and FlixBus station since the end of November 2023, when the lease on the old Main Street terminal ran out. It’s smaller and a few miles east of downtown. The METRORail Green Line ends at Magnolia Park Transit Center right beside it, so it’s a train ride from downtown, not a cab.
- 605 Gray St: FlixBus’s downtown stop, boarding in the parking lot near the Smith Street corner. If your ticket says Gray St, don’t go to Harrisburg.
- 902 Washington Ave: Amtrak’s Houston station, where the Sunset Limited calls three days a week in each direction. It’s not the bus station and not next to it. Our guide to the Washington Avenue Amtrak station covers getting there.
- North of the city? Vonlane’s coach from the Woodlands Waterway Marriott to Austin started on May 4, 2026. Wanderu doesn’t sell it, and it leaves from The Woodlands, not Houston, so it only helps if you’re already up there.
Under two hours
Galveston, TX
By shuttle van only; no scheduled bus or train
- Galveston Express shuttle
There’s no bus or train from Houston to Galveston, and as of August 2026 none is planned by rail. The Houston-Galveston Area Council told the Galveston County Daily News that no commuter rail project is in the works. The study it’s running is for a regional bus that doesn’t exist yet.
What does exist is the shuttle van. Galveston Express runs shared shuttles from Bush Intercontinental and Hobby to any hotel on the island or the cruise terminal, seven days a week, from $45 a person as of September 2026. Texas Shuttle does door-to-door car service at car-service prices.
Neither is on Wanderu, so there’s no live fare here and no booking link. Once you’re on the island, Island Transit’s trolleys cover the Seawall and downtown.
College Station and Bryan, TX
From about 1 hour 35 minutes by bus
- Houston to College Station busesfrom $27
It’s one of the shortest bus rides out of Houston, and on last year’s bookings the cheapest one still selling: the typical College Station ticket was about $34 on FlixBus. Most people go for Texas A&M, and on a football Saturday so does most of the bus.
Any other day, the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library sits on the west side of campus. Visitors can walk into its Oval Office replica and sit at the desk. Bryan is a few miles north, and Greyhound’s stop there ran about $29 last year, but Wanderu isn’t selling that route right now, so College Station is the one to search.
Beaumont, TX
About 1 hour 30 minutes on the bus runs booked in the past year
- Houston to Beaumont busesfrom $85
- Houston to Beaumont trainsfrom $20
The 2018 list sold Beaumont as a $14 train ride. The past year’s bookings were mostly FlixBus at about $28 a ticket and 90 minutes each way. The last of them was booked in July 2026, and as of September 2026 the only bus company Wanderu lists on the route is Tornado Bus at a much higher fare.
Trust the live price, not the $28. That’s history. The Sunset Limited stops here too, if the timing suits.
If you go, go for Spindletop. The gusher that came in just south of town on January 10, 1901 started the Texas oil boom and tripled Beaumont’s population in two months. The Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum rebuilds the boomtown around it, down to a street of reconstructed period buildings. The oil made Houston. Beaumont got there first.
Two to four hours
Austin, TX
About 3 hours by bus
Austin has the fresh headline: COTALAND, the 30-acre amusement park at Circuit of the Americas, opened on September 26, 2026 with 34 attractions. One of them, Circuit Breaker, is billed as the first tilt coaster in Texas. Single-day tickets ran $39.99 to $75 the week it opened.
It’s our second-busiest route from Houston, 402 tickets in the past year across five bus companies. The typical Austin ticket was about $42, with FlixBus the cheapest of the regulars at about $41 and RedCoach close behind. Booking two weeks out took the typical fare from about $46 to about $33.
San Antonio, TX
About 3 and a half hours by bus, 5 hours on the Sunset Limited
- Houston to San Antonio busesfrom $27
- Houston to San Antonio trainsfrom $55
The cheapest thing on the 2018 list was San Antonio at $10.13. The typical ticket in the past year was about $52. The Alamo is still worth it.
The site is midway through a rebuild of its whole plaza. The Alamo Promenade, a walkway lined with statues of Texas Revolution figures, opened on November 21, 2025, the Texas Cavaliers Education Center on April 30, 2026, and Paseo del Alamo reopened on July 1, 2026. The full Visitor Center and Museum is due in spring 2028.
Greyhound and FlixBus run all day, and on last year’s bookings they split the route about evenly on price. The Sunset Limited does it in about five hours and typically ran a little more. For the rest of the day, see our guide to free things to do in San Antonio.
Lake Charles, LA
About 3 hours 20 minutes by train, about 2 and a half by bus
- Houston to Lake Charles trainsfrom $27
- Houston to Lake Charles busesfrom $24
Lake Charles is Louisiana’s biggest casino market, and it’s the rare one you can reach by train. The Sunset Limited stops downtown, and Amtrak’s typical Lake Charles fare in the past year was about $36, cheaper than the typical bus ticket to most places on this page.
L’Auberge and the Golden Nugget sit side by side south of downtown, with Horseshoe across the river in Westlake. FlixBus runs the bus, twice a day, for the days the train doesn’t.
Corpus Christi, TX
About 3 and a half hours by bus
- Houston to Corpus Christi busesfrom $28
FlixBus sold most of the past year’s Houston to Corpus Christi tickets, into the downtown station at 602 N Staples St, and the typical ticket was about $44. The draw is on North Beach, where the USS Lexington, a World War II Navy ship you can spend a whole afternoon inside, sits steps from the Texas State Aquarium. Adults are $25 as of September 2026.
The Gulf is right there when you’re done. If beach time is the point, stay the night; as a day trip it still works.
Lafayette, LA
From about 3 hours 45 minutes by bus, 5 hours on the train
- Houston to Lafayette busesfrom $29
- Houston to Lafayette trainsfrom $36
The Cajun capital, accent and all. It’s a two-mode town from Houston: FlixBus and Greyhound run the bus, and the Sunset Limited stops there too. On last year’s bookings the typical bus ticket was about $53 and the train about $58.
Greyhound’s station is downtown on Lee Avenue, so you can walk into town from the bus. Come hungry; the whole point of Lafayette is boudin, cracklins and a plate lunch, and the music starts early.
Four to six hours: a long day
Dallas and Fort Worth, TX
From about 4 hours by bus to Dallas, about 5 hours 20 minutes to Fort Worth
Our biggest route from Houston by a mile: 721 Dallas tickets in the past year across five bus companies, and the corridor the high-speed train was supposed to fix. It didn’t. As of September 2026 Texas Central has no track, no train and no confirmed funding since the federal grant was pulled in 2025, so the bus is the ride.
The typical Dallas ticket ran about $54. Tornado Bus was the cheapest regular at about $45, FlixBus about $50, and RedCoach did it in about four hours for more. Dallas rewards two weeks’ notice: it dropped from about $58 booked the day before to about $39 two weeks out.
Fort Worth is its own route, a bit over five hours, and had a typical fare of about $61 last year. The Stockyards run America’s only twice-daily cattle drive, at 11:30 and 4:00, and back in Dallas the Dallas Museum of Art has been free since 2013.
Baton Rouge, LA
About 5 hours by bus
- Houston to Baton Rouge busesfrom $32
The 2018 list had Baton Rouge at $17. In the past year the typical ticket was about $59. FlixBus and Greyhound split last year’s tickets, and the ride is about five hours.
The reason to go hasn’t moved. The Louisiana State Capitol is the tallest in the country at 450 feet, and the observation deck on its 27th floor looks out over the Mississippi. LSU is a short ride south when the Tigers are home.
Make it a weekend
Austin and San Antonio are day trips that get better with a hotel. These three need one.
New Orleans, LA
From about 6 hours by bus, 9 and a half on the train
- Houston to New Orleans busesfrom $36
- Houston to New Orleans trainsfrom $50
The one the old list got most wrong: $15.61 in 2018, about $66 typical in the past year, with a quarter of tickets under $57. FlixBus runs the fastest buses at just over six hours; the Sunset Limited takes nine and a half and gives you the Atchafalaya Basin out the window.
Both put you down at Union Passenger Terminal, 1001 Loyola Avenue, where the Rampart-Loyola streetcar starts at the door and a single fare is $1.25. Our guide to Union Passenger Terminal covers the station. Last year, booking the bus two weeks out took the typical fare from about $74 to about $49.
McAllen and Brownsville, TX
About 6 hours by bus to either
- Houston to McAllen busesfrom $37
- Houston to Brownsville busesfrom $41
The Rio Grande Valley is one of Houston’s bigger corridors: 129 tickets to the two cities in the past year, most of them on Tornado Bus at a typical $69.
In McAllen, Quinta Mazatlan is a birding center wrapped in native gardens. In Brownsville, the Gladys Porter Zoo packs 1,600 animals into 31 acres downtown and is known for breeding endangered species. Six hours each way is a weekend, not a Saturday.
El Paso, TX
About 11 hours by bus, overnight on the Sunset Limited
- Houston to El Paso busesfrom $69
- Houston to El Paso trainsfrom $92
The far end of Texas, and the one destination here where the overnight train earns its keep. The Sunset Limited runs Houston to El Paso, and Tornado Bus, which sold most of the bus tickets, does it in about 11 hours; last year it typically ran $94.
Franklin Mountains State Park puts almost 27,000 acres and more than 100 miles of trail 15 minutes from downtown, $5 to get in. Go for the long weekend. Nobody day-trips El Paso.
The rest of the map
Wanderu also sells Houston to Victoria, Waco and Laredo. All three booked in the past year, none often enough for us to tell you much about the fares.
- Victoria, TXfrom $20
- Waco, TXfrom $26
- Laredo, TXfrom $37
What’s still under $20 (the honest list)
The 2018 page promised seven destinations under $20. Last year’s bookings turned up nothing you can plan around. Of the 2,479 departures booked from Houston in the past year, 12 came in under $20.
Ten were one bus company’s sub-$3 fares on Dallas and Austin, $1.65 to $2.98, all bought in one week, August 28 to September 2, 2026. The other two were Greyhound hops to Baytown and Katy, which are Houston with extra steps.
On last year’s bookings, no route on this page sold most of its seats under $20 or had a typical fare within $8 of the line. The closest still selling was College Station at about $34.
Our under-$20 guides cover the cities where that budget still works.
What the 2018 list lost
Grand Prairie is the one that’s gone. It was $18.59 on the old list, and the last ticket anyone bought from Houston to Grand Prairie on Wanderu was in January 2024. Ride to Dallas instead; it’s the same metro.
The other six all still sell. On last year’s bookings every one of them had a typical fare two to more than five times what the old list quoted: Austin about $42, San Antonio $52, Dallas $54, Baton Rouge $59, New Orleans $66. The $14 train to Beaumont became a $28 FlixBus run, and the last of those was booked in July 2026.
How to pay less (what 2,479 tickets say)
We looked at every Houston departure booked on Wanderu between September 2025 and September 2026. Four things held up:
- Don’t count on under $20. Half of one percent of tickets came in under $20. Ten of those twelve were one bus company’s sub-$3 fares, all bought in one week. Last year most trips here ran $30 to $70.
- Two weeks’ notice is worth about a third. On the five biggest corridors, the typical fare fell the further out people booked. Dallas went from about $58 the day before to about $39 two weeks out, Austin from about $46 to about $33, San Antonio from about $54 to about $37. New Orleans by bus went from about $74 to about $49, Fort Worth from about $63 to about $43.
- Don’t wait for a cheap month. We checked Dallas and Austin month by month. Austin’s typical fare stayed between $38 and $48 every month, and Dallas swung from $38 in March 2026 to $62 in June with no pattern we’d bet a booking on. The September 2026 under-$20 blip was one company’s fares, not the season, so there’s nothing to wait for.
- Houston books late. More than half of last year’s Dallas and Austin tickets were bought within a day of travel, and that’s when fares peak. Book two weeks ahead and you’ve done all the planning these routes need.
For the version of this advice that works from any city, read our guide to finding the cheapest tickets.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best day trips from Houston by bus or train?
Austin, San Antonio and College Station are the three we’d start with. Austin is about 3 hours, and COTALAND opened at Circuit of the Americas in September 2026. San Antonio is about 3 and a half hours, with the Alamo plaza rebuild underway. College Station is about 1 hour 35 minutes, and had last year’s cheapest typical fare on a route still selling, about $34. Lake Charles, Corpus Christi and Lafayette all fit in a day too. Dallas and Baton Rouge are long days; New Orleans is a weekend.
Can you do day trips from Houston without a car?
Yes, with one asterisk. Greyhound and FlixBus leave from 7000 Harrisburg Blvd, at the eastern end of the METRORail Green Line. FlixBus also boards downtown at 605 Gray St, and Amtrak leaves from 902 Washington Ave. The asterisk is Galveston, which has no bus or train, so the shuttle vans are the car-free option there.
Is there a bus or train from Houston to Galveston?
No. There’s no scheduled bus or train between Houston and Galveston, and as of August 2026 no rail is planned. Galveston Express runs shared shuttle vans from Bush Intercontinental and Hobby to island hotels and the cruise terminal, from $45 a person as of September 2026. Door-to-door car services cover the rest. Wanderu doesn’t sell either.
What day trips from Houston are under $20?
On last year’s bookings, none reliably. Of 2,479 departures booked from Houston on Wanderu in the past year, 12 came in under $20. Ten were one bus company’s sub-$3 fares on Dallas and Austin, all bought in one week, August 28 to September 2, 2026, and two were trips to Baytown and Katy. Last year’s cheapest typical fares on routes still selling were College Station at about $34, then Lake Charles by train at about $36.
Is the bus or the train cheaper from Houston?
On last year’s bookings, the bus. It runs every day, and Houston has one Amtrak route, the Sunset Limited, three days a week in each direction. The train was competitive to Lake Charles (about $36 typical) and within about $10 of the bus to San Antonio and Lafayette. To New Orleans it cost more than the bus and takes three hours longer.
What are good weekend trips from Houston by bus or train?
New Orleans, about six hours by bus or nine and a half on the Sunset Limited, cheapest booked two weeks out. McAllen and Brownsville are about six hours each. El Paso is about 11 hours by bus or overnight on the train. Austin and San Antonio both work as day trips that improve with a night.
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, and what you pay depends on when you book. “Typical” fares and ticket counts are Wanderu bookings from Houston, September 2025 to September 2026, per ticket, the full price paid; a booking can cover more than one seat. Travel times are the typical scheduled duration of those same bookings, except the Lake Charles bus time, which comes from its route page. Shuttle, park and museum prices are the operators’ published figures as of September 2026.
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