Everyone knows that Texas is massive. One of the first things we wanted to figure out when we planned our trip, was whether we’d want to rent a car for the entire week. As we were visiting 3 different cities, the drop fees for the car rental were not cheap, so we looked at alternative forms of transportation instead.
In Austin, we ended up using public transportation a few times, but we mainly used Lyft to get around. We were staying at a hotel that was in the mid-town area which was about 15-20 minutes away from the central core, so it was easier to use Lyft. Public transportation would have added another 20-40 minutes onto each of our trips, and given the limited amount of time we had, it made sense to use Lyft.
In San Antonio, we walked around quite a bit but also used the bus numerous times during our stay there. It helped that we chose a hotel that is closer to downtown, so each of our bus rides were quite short.
Houston was the only city in which we chose to rent a car. The reason for this is that we had planned to visit one of the outlet malls that was located about an hour outside of Houston. The price of the rental car would have almost been the same as the Lyft ride to and from the outlet mall, so it was definitely worth it. Aside from downtown, Houston does seem to have parking available at most places, so that also helped us with our decision to rent a car.
Since we decided against renting a car for our entire stay in Texas, we had to figure out a way to get from Austin to San Antonio and then from San Antonio to Houston. We ended up booking a Greyhound ticket from Austin to San Antonio, because the Greyhound station was conveniently located just 5 minutes from our hotel. We were told to arrive by 6:40pm for a 7:00pm departure and we did just that, but 7:00pm came and went with absolutely no sign of the bus. When we finally got a hold of someone to ask, we were told that our bus was running late and they hoped it would be there by 8:45pm. So we now had almost 2 hours to kill at the Greyhound station. This is a very remote area, without any cafes or restaurants nearby, and being a Sunday night, even the convenience store that was about 10 minutes away was closed. I later found out that you can actually track your bus on Greyhound’s website. Had I known that at the time, we would have stayed at the hotel lobby and waited there instead. The only plus side to all this is that there was Wi-Fi available at the Greyhound station and we could pass time by watching videos. Once the bus arrived, it was a smooth and quick trip to San Antonio.
The Wi-Fi on the bus was spotty but was great when it worked. Unfortunately the Wi-Fi at the bus station in San Antonio didn’t work quite as well, so it made ordering a Lyft ride from the station a bit more difficult.
To get from San Antonio to Houston, we booked tickets on Megabus, a discount bus service. Because we booked tickets about 6 weeks in advance, we were able to book a $1 rate. We also decided to pay for seat selection and paid an additional $1 to do that.
We were amongst the first people to arrive at the bus stop and when we got there, we were surprised to find that the bus stop was just an empty parking lot.
There was no signage, no concession stands, no vending machines, no bathrooms, nothing. About 15 minutes before the bus was to depart, an employee showed up and asked us to start lining up. She repeatedly told people that the order of the line would be the order that we would board, so I guess most people don’t pay for seats and it’s just a first come first served situation. In hindsight, you really don’t need to pay for seats, as you can just get there a few minutes earlier to ensure you are close to the front of the line. In fact, paying for seats kind of came back to bite us, as we had seats with a table, which meant we didn’t get any leg room at all, as there was a couple that sat across from us.
Our bus ended up being late and it didn’t arrive at the parking lot until about 20 minutes after 6pm. By the time we loaded our luggage and everyone was settled, it was about 6:45pm before we set off.
They advertised having Wi-Fi on board but it didn’t work well at all. The bus made a stop in Katy at a mall parking lot before continuing on towards downtown Houston. The bus stop in downtown Houston turned out to be in one of the worst areas of Houston. I had planned to order a Lyft ride as we arrive into the station but due to the lack of Wi-Fi on the bus, I wasn’t able to do that. In the end, we walked to a McDonald’s about a block away to try and use their Wi-Fi. That turned out to be a bad idea as we didn’t realize we’d have to walk through one of the scariest areas on Houston. We saw countless homeless people sleeping on the streets and many other scary looking people just hanging out and watching us. When our Lyft driver finally arrived, one of the first things he said was “What are you girls doing in this part of town?”
At the end of the day, both Greyhound and Megabus turned out to be a good alternative choice to travel between cities in Texas, if you didn’t have access to a car. Both had punctuality issues but both buses were clean and the staff were friendly. Only wish they had better Wi-Fi on the bus.
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