If you don’t have a car, there are three ways to get from Dallas to Austin: fly, greyhound or take the train. I decided flying was out because I feel ridiculous flying such a short distance (~300 km). I wasn’t sure I was up for the kahrazy adventures every reckons you get on the greyhound, so train it was.

Turns out it’s also the cheapest way to go, at least if you buy a ticket in advance. Which you may as well do, because there’s only 1 train per day so it’s not like you need any flexibility. (Yes, people from countries with developed passenger rail infrastructure, that’s right. One. Per day.)

It’s also the slowest way to go, taking well over twice as long as the ‘hound. As in, 6-7 hours. For 300 km. But on the plus side, the seats are massive, with heaps of legroom and proper leg rests, and you do feel very dignified crawling along through the country side in the late afternoon, with views like this:

In fact, having previously travelled by rail from Denver to SF (scheduled time: 35 hours; actual time: more like 40), the 7-ish hours for Dallas to Austin positively flew by, and before I knew it I’d arrived in Austin. Which I really must write about soon, so that this blog gets to Italy while I’m still here.