Trippy
 
  Questions  
Drive      Fly      Stay      Login    Signup

Distance between Austin and Houston

Driving non-stop from Austin to Houston

How far is Houston from Austin? Here's the quick answer if you drive this relatively short distance without making any stops.

Nonstop drive: 165 miles or 266 km

Driving time: 2 hours, 32 minutes

Even though you can drive this distance straight through, it might be more interesting to stop along the way. You can scroll down to calculate how many hours it would take if you drive with stops.


City:
Check-in:
Check-out:
Rooms:     Travelers:
Get:    
  Change your route
From:
To:
 


Flying non-stop from Austin to Houston

Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in the fastest possible straight line between Austin, Texas and Houston, Texas. Because of the curvature of the Earth, the shortest distance is actually the "great circle" distance, or "as the crow flies" which is calculated using an iterative Vincenty formula.

Flight distance: 146 miles or 236 km

Flight time: 31 minutes

The straight line flight distance is 19 miles less than driving on roads, which means the driving distance is roughly 1.1x of the flight distance.

Your plane flies much faster than a car, so the flight time is about 1/3th of the time it would take to drive.

This is a relatively short flight in a private plane, but you might be planning to book a commercial flight. In that case, your travel time would really need to include how many minutes to get to your local airport, wait for security, board and taxi on the runway, land at the other airport, and get to your destination. Scroll down to see a more realistic calculation that takes into account all these factors to get a more accurate estimate of your actual flight time.





Austin to Houston road trip

Let's say you're actually planning a road trip to Houston, and you want to stop on the way to explore. If it's a real road trip, you might want to check out interesting places along the way, or maybe eat at a great restaurant. That's what Trippy is perfect for, helping you figure out travel plans in detail.

Road trip: 1 day of driving

With the full itinerary planned out, we can estimate your total travel time for this trip.

Travel time: 4 hours on the road


Itinerary

Start in Austin.

Drive for about 42 minutes, then stop at Neighbor's Kitchen & Yard and stay for about 1 hour. Next, drive for another 54 minutes then stop at Royers Round Top Café and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 40 minutes then stop in Weimar (Texas) and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 40 minutes then stop in Sealy and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 1 hour then stop at Uchi and stay for 1 hour.

Finally, drive for about 5 minutes and arrive in Houston.


To see all the details on this itinerary, including recommended restaurants, hotels, and things to do along the way, check out the full road trip planner:





Austin to Houston airports and flights

In the quick calculation above, we assumed you had a private plane and just wanted to know the time in the air from city to city. But for most of us, we're going to be flying on a commercial airline (whether it's first class or coach). So that means we really need to account for all the extra travel time getting to the airport, waiting for our flight, and making it to the destination.

To give you a better estimate of real-life travel, we've put together a flight itinerary with actual airports. Eventually you'll be able to customize this plan, choosing your own airports and flights. But for now, here's an example we've selected to give you an idea of how traveling might work between airports.

Departure airport: Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS)

Arrival airport: George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH)

With the airports selected, we can estimate the travel time to and from the airport, based on how far the airport is from downtown.

Getting to the airport: 20 minutes

Getting to your destination: 47 minutes

Now finally, let's look at an actual flight from AUS to IAH and figure out how long it would take to fly including take-off and landing, and time to taxi on the runway.

Commercial flight time: 47 minutes

So now we can finally get an idea of the total travel time from Austin to Houston including time spent getting to/from the airports, an estimated wait time of 2 hours at the airport for TSA security lines and waiting at the gate, and the actual flight itself.

Total travel time: 4 hours


To see the details on this flight plan, including recommended airports, airline, and route, check out the flight planner:





Plan a trip to Houston

Trippy has a ton of information that can help you plan your trip to Houston, Texas. Start by reading the Trippy page on where to stay in Houston. Trippy has an entire Q&A community where you can post questions and get answers from expert travelers or locals who know the area. For instance, you might be interested in the answers to this question: Fun things to do and must eats in Houston and Austin?. If you're looking for a place to stay, you might want to check out Hotel ZaZa. A great place to eat might be Uchi. Trippy members can suggest things to do in Houston like Houston Galleria. Check out some of the questions people have asked about Houston like Best Mexican restaurants in town?. Click the button below to explore Houston in detail.





How far is it the other way?

The distance is the same either way if you're flying a straight line (or driving the same roads back and forth). But for a real trip, there can be plenty of differences so go ahead and check the reverse directions to get the distance from Houston to Austin, or go to the main page to calculate the distance between cities.

If you happen to know Austin, don't forget to help other travelers and answer some questions about Austin!





At a Glance
without making any stops
total driving distance is 165 miles
driving time of 2 hours, 32 minutes
flight distance is 146 miles
flight time of 31 minutes
197 Austin travel answers
141 Houston travel answers








   
Questions   ·   Destinations   ·   Drive   ·   Fly   ·   Airports   ·   Stay   ·   Search

Login   ·   About   ·   FAQ   ·   Contact   ·   Privacy   ·   Terms