A practical 10-day West Texas road trip itinerary looping from El Paso through Fort Davis, Marfa and Big Bend National Park, with driving times and how to pace each stop.
Far West Texas is one of the great open-road landscapes in the United States: mile-high mountains, an art town in the middle of the desert, and a national park the size of a small country on the Rio Grande. This West Texas road trip itinerary loops out from El Paso over 10 days, through Fort Davis, Marfa and Big Bend National Park, with realistic driving legs and a clear sense of where to slow down.
The loop starts and finishes at El Paso, the region's main airport. From there it runs south to the cool Davis Mountains around Fort Davis, on to the art town of Marfa, then down to the Rio Grande at Big Bend National Park. The return climbs back north through the ranching town of Marathon and the interstate stop of Van Horn before closing the circle in El Paso. Distances are long and fuel stops are few, so plan each leg before you set off.
This is a scenic, experience-led drive with a moderate dose of desert hiking and stargazing rather than a hard adventure. It suits travellers who like wide-open country, dark skies, small towns and one big national park, and who are happy to drive long, quiet highways between stops. Any reliable car copes with the paved routes; a higher-clearance vehicle only helps on a few of Big Bend's backroads.
Ten days is comfortable: it gives two nights each in Fort Davis, Marfa and Big Bend without long daily drives. With only four or five days you could focus on Marfa and Big Bend alone, flying into El Paso or Midland and skipping the wider loop.
Fly in, pick up the car and shake off the journey. Drive the Trans-Mountain or Scenic Drive for a view over the Franklin Mountains, and stock up on fuel, water and supplies, which are cheaper and easier here than anywhere else on the route.
The highest town in Texas sits in the green Davis Mountains, a welcome break from the desert. Drive the Davis Mountains Scenic Loop, walk the restored Fort Davis National Historic Site, and book an evening Star Party at the McDonald Observatory, where you can look through research telescopes under some of the darkest skies in the country.
Eight days through the finest UNESCO towns of Bohemia and Moravia: Prague's Astronomical Clock, the bone church of Kutná Hora, Telč's Renaissance square, the fairy-tale castle bend of Český Krumlov and Pilsner Urquell in Plzeň.
Marfa is a tiny ranching town reinvented as a minimalist-art destination. Tour Donald Judd's installations at the Chinati Foundation (reserve well ahead), drive out to the lone Prada Marfa sculpture on US-90, and stop at the Marfa Lights viewing area after dark to look for the area's famous unexplained glow. Leave time for the galleries, bookshops and good coffee in town.
The heart of the trip. Base in Terlingua or up in the Chisos Basin and give it three nights. Hike from the Chisos Basin to The Window for sunset, drive the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive to the soaring walls of Santa Elena Canyon, and soak in the riverside hot springs beside the Rio Grande. The park has more than 150 miles of trails, world-class birding and some of the darkest skies in North America, so pace your days and start hikes early.
Leave the park by its quiet eastern gate at Persimmon Gap and roll into Marathon, a one-street ranching town on the high grasslands. The historic Gage Hotel is the place to eat and sleep, with brilliant stars overhead once the sun drops.
Turn north to Van Horn, where the route rejoins Interstate 10. Break the drive at the restored 1930 Hotel El Capitan, an hour from Guadalupe Mountains National Park, then make the final run back to El Paso to close the loop and fly home.
The two-night bases at Fort Davis, Marfa and Big Bend are what keep this from feeling like a string of one-night stops. Keep your longest single drive (El Paso to Fort Davis, roughly three hours) for the fresh first morning, and treat the Marathon and Van Horn nights as relaxed staging posts rather than destinations in themselves.
October to April brings the kindest weather for hiking and driving. Spring and autumn are ideal; winter days are cool and clear, with cold desert nights. Avoid high summer if you can, when the lowland desert around Big Bend is dangerously hot, though the higher Chisos and Davis Mountains stay more comfortable.
This is a self-drive route with no public-transport alternative. Fill the tank at every town, because fuel stations are far apart and almost absent inside Big Bend. Carry far more water than you think you need, download offline maps, and keep the cool box stocked. Cell signal is patchy to non-existent across much of the region.
Desert heat is the main hazard: start hikes early, turn back in the midday sun, and never rely on finding water on the trail. Watch for free-ranging livestock and deer on the highways at dawn and dusk, and fuel up before any long leg. Big Bend sits on the Mexican border, so carry ID and check current crossing rules if you plan to visit Boquillas.
Ready to map it out? Use our full Big Bend and West Texas route below to see every stop, driving leg and overnight.
From Cambridge's Gothic spires to Ely's cathedral rising above the flat Fens, this journey through Cambridgeshire takes in Bronze Age causeways, a Norman cathedral with a theatrical three-arched West Front, and Stamford, England's finest stone town.
The full route — stops, maps, and driving times — is on Routebook by Kington.
A 10-day big-sky loop from El Paso through the Davis Mountains, the art town of Marfa and the desert wilderness of Big Bend National Park, returning via Marathon and Van Horn.
Routebookby Routebook
