5 Day Big Bend National Park Road Trip Itinerary (1.5 days in the Park)
5 Day Big Bend National Park Road Trip Itinerary (1.5 days in the Park)
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Big Bend National Park sits in the very Southwestern edge of Texas along the Mexico border. There’s no quick way to get there. To me, that’s the best part. This is a very quick overview of our itinerary. I created a more detailed post, Visiting Big Bend with Dogs that’s helpful even if you won’t have dogs with you, but it’s a drive-centric trip vs a hiking-centric trip.
We spent only 1.5 days in the actual park, but the trip itself was 5 days – which shows you how long it takes to get there and back! We took the dogs along so flying wasnt’ an option – besides, we always prefer a road trip.
We drove from Northeast Texas, which is about a 10-hour drive. We stopped in Midland and stayed there on the way, so that broke up the trip a bit. If you don’t want to drive that far, you can fly into San Antonio, which is still about 6 hours away, or El Paso, which is a 4-hour drive. Like I said, there’s no quick way to get there, haha! But, that’s what’s kept Big Bend, well, Big Bend.
Water is limited - it’s a desert with mountains and a lot of caliche dust. The landscape and everything about the area is rugged and there aren’t many places left in the USA that are so remote. Many places in the park had no service – so you can actually feel like you got away from it all!
Here’s a very quick overview of our 5-day Itinerary for visiting Big Bend National Park and the highlights along the way:
Day 1 – Drove to Midland and stayed the night. This was about a 6.5-hour drive for us without stops. Of course, we had plenty of stops with the dogs, haha.
Day 2 – Drove to Terlingua where we were staying. We went about 1.5 hours out of the way because I just had to see Prada Marfa, lol. It was worth it! We stayed at Ten Bits Ranch at Big Bend – highly recommend!
Day 3 – Spent the day from about 9:30am-4pm in the park. Drove to Panther Junction, then Rio Grande Village, then the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive to Santa Elena Canyon. We ate dinner at The Starlight Theatre in Terlingua Ghost Town – this is a must-do!
Day 4 – Packed up to head home but decided to drive through the other areas of Big Bend that we hadn’t seen yet. We probably spent from 9am-11:30am driving through the park to Chisos Basin and then exiting via Persimmon Gap and starting the long drive home. We stayed in San Antonio this night. It was about a 6-hour drive, but we took the scenic route and made a lot of stops so it took us until about 7pm.
Day 5 – We stopped at the Alamo, then on to Luckenbach, TX, a pit-stop in Fredericksburg for lunch at West End Pizza – delish! – and finally home. We left the hotel at 8am and I think we got home around 6pm.
When’s the Best Time to Go to Big Bend? January or February, ideally. Big Bend gets extremely hot from Spring through Fall. The dates of our trip were January 28-February 1. The weather was perfect! 70 during the day and 40s at night. It was sunny but not hot.
If you’re traveling with dogs, I probably wouldn’t recommend going any later in the year, depending on the weather. We leave the AC running no matter what, but it gets hot in the car with the sun just driving. If you won’t have dogs with you, when you go just depends on how you handle the heat.
You can check out my Instagram for more pictures and videos and my Texas highlight has this trip and more. For more details to plan your trip, check out Visiting Big Bend with Dogs. Big Bend is truly an amazing site – I can’t wait for you to see it for yourself!
