Texas

Texas is too large to understand through a single highway. This journey is built around the idea that the state only truly reveals itself when you experience its changing regions mile by mile — from desert mountains and border crossings to Gulf beaches, Hill Country backroads, refinery skylines, and endless interstate corridors stretching toward the horizon.

Beginning in Arkansas and pushing deep into Texas, the route follows many of the state’s most important highways and urban corridors while exploring the places that define modern Texas. The journey heads west through oil country and the wide-open landscapes of West Texas before reaching El Paso, where mountains rise above the interstate and the border becomes part of everyday life.

From there, the drive follows Interstate 10 across vast desert basins and rugged terrain before turning toward the Hill Country, where winding roads, limestone hills, rivers, and small towns offer a slower pace and a completely different side of the state. Austin and San Antonio bring towering freeway systems, historic districts, and the unmistakable contrast between old and new Texas.

Further south, the route pushes toward Corpus Christi and the Gulf Coast, where beaches, shipping channels, coastal bridges, and sea air provide a pause from the long interstate miles. The journey then continues through Houston’s sprawling freeway network and industrial skyline before crossing into the refinery corridors of Beaumont and the pine forests of East Texas near Tyler and Longview.

More than a simple road trip, this is a full-scale journey across the many identities of Texas — a drive through border towns, freight corridors, coastlines, massive cities, quiet stretches of highway, and landscapes that seem to change completely every few hundred miles.

Over ten days, the trip becomes both an expedition and a living archive of the roads, regions, and atmosphere that make Texas unlike anywhere else in America.