Texas

By plane
By plane

Texas is home to two major airlines: American Airlines (http://www.aa.com/), based out of Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport; and Southwest Airlines (http://www.southwest.com/), based out of Love Field, Dallas's secondary airport. United Airlines maintains a primary hub at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport IAH. American and United fly to many national and international destinations. Southwest is the no-frills discounter granddad and flies throughout Texas and most of the United States. Travel to any destination world-wide is quite painless from the larger Texas airports. Nonstop flights to and from Houston's IAH include London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Moscow, Dubai, Doha, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Bogota, Lagos, and Tokyo. Nonstop flights to and from Dallas/Fort Worth's DFW include London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Madrid, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Santiago, Dubai, Tokyo, Seoul, and Sydney.

By car
By car

The road system is almost universally excellent, and even the most remote points in the state can be accessed with an average sedan. Gas stations are numerous; however, in rural West Texas, do not press your luck. Texan highways are often built with parallel frontage roads and turnarounds at most exits. Speed limits are very strictly enforced in rural areas of the state; Texas state troopers will pull you over for an infraction as small as five miles per hour over the speed limit, as traffic fines are often an important source of income for many smaller towns. However, when traveling through larger cities, observing the "common speed" of traffic around you is much safer. The rural speed limit in Texas is generally 70 MPH, though it increases to 80 MPH on Interstates 10 and 20 in the sparsely populated far western portion of the state.

On the down side, Texas has one of America's worst traffic safety records and one of the highest number of alcohol-related traffic fatalities in America. Additionally, drivers in south and west Texas should expect to encounter U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints and inspection stations along various highways; international travelers will need to present proper identification.

By train
By train

Since Texas cities are geographically dispersed, travel by train is expensive and often inconvenient, though Amtrak (http://www.amtrak.com/) does provide several lines. Passenger service is no longer an option for cities in the Panhandle or southern Texas. Again, the size of the state is startling; traveling across the width of Texas from Orange, in the eastern extremity, near Houston, to El Paso in the western extremity is roughly the same distance as one would encounter while traveling from El Paso to Los Angeles or from Houston to Jacksonville, Florida. Texarkana, in the northeast corner of the state, is closer to Chicago than it is to the extreme southern tip of Texas.