How far is Arlington (Texas) from Galveston? Here's the quick answer if you are able to make this entire trip by car without stopping.
Nonstop drive: 306 miles or 492 km
Driving time: 4 hours, 36 minutes
Realistically, you'll probably want to add a buffer for rest stops, gas, or food along the way. To get a better idea of how long this trip would really be, scroll down to calculate how many hours it would take if you drive with stops.
Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in the fastest possible straight line between Galveston, Texas and Arlington, 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: 273 miles or 440 km
Flight time: 52 minutes
The straight line flight distance is 33 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 1/4th 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.
Realistically, you're not going to want to drive without stopping all the way from Galveston to Arlington (Texas), especially if you're the main driver. So let's say you're actually planning a road trip to Arlington (Texas), and you need to stop along the way to rest. Plus if it's a real road trip, you might want to check out interesting stops along the way, eat at great restaurants, and find a hotel to stay overnight. That's what Trippy is perfect for, helping you figure out travel plans in detail.
Based on the length of this trip, we think you could spread out this fun road trip over a number of days.
Road trip: 3 days of driving
With the full itinerary planned out, we can estimate your total travel time for this trip.
Travel time: 18.5 hours on the road with 2 overnights
Itinerary
Start in Galveston.
Drive for about 55 minutes, then stop in Houston and stay for about 2 hours.
Next, drive for another 45 minutes then stop in Conroe and stay for 1 hour.
Drive for 1 hour then stop at Buc-ee's and stay for 1 hour.
Drive for 44 minutes then stop in Marquez. Stay overnight.
The next day, drive for about 12.5 hours, then stop in Turlington (Texas) and stay overnight.
The next day, drive for about 1 hour, then stop in Rice (Texas) and stay for about 1 hour.
Next, drive for another 44 minutes then stop in Dallas and stay for 4 hours.
Finally, drive for about 28 minutes and arrive in Arlington (Texas).
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:
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: William P. Hobby Airport (HOU)
Arrival airport: Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW)
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: 113 minutes
Getting to your destination: 36 minutes
Now finally, let's look at an example flight from HOU to DFW 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: 1 hour, 15 minutes
So now we can finally get an idea of the total travel time from Galveston to Arlington (Texas) 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: 6 hours
To see the details on this flight plan, including recommended airports, airline, and route, check out the flight planner:
Trippy has a ton of information that can help you plan your trip to Arlington, Texas. Start by reading the Trippy page on where to stay in Arlington (Texas). Trippy members can suggest things to do in Arlington (Texas) like Cowboys Stadium. Click the button below to explore Arlington (Texas) in detail.
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 Arlington (Texas) to Galveston, or go to the main page to calculate the distance between cities.
If you happen to know Galveston, don't forget to help other travelers and answer some questions about Galveston!