(This is an excerpt from my book, “Can Travel Restore My Faith in My Country”. It is part one of a series of travel stories from the train.)

A Slow Travel Stop on the Sunset Limited Worth Planning For

I had passed through Alpine before, on a trip to Big Bend, so the town was not entirely new to me. But this visit was different: three full nights, driven not by choice but by the schedule of the Sunset Limited. At the time of my trip, Amtrak’s westbound service through Alpine ran just three days a week — Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday — one of the few long-distance routes in the country that does not run daily.

Three nights in a small West Texas town raised a question I had not planned for: how would I fill the time? Would I keep meeting people at the pace the trip had started with? I did not fully understand Alpine’s isolation until I started walking its streets. There was no car rental, no bus service, and the train itself only passed through every three days. I did not know a single person in town.

What Is Slow Travel?

Three unplanned days in a place like Alpine is a good introduction to what podcasters and travel writers call “slow travel.” There is no single formal definition, so here’s mine: travel that lingers rather than checks boxes. It looks like long breakfasts at a greasy spoon cafe, hours on a park bench with a book, a journal or sketchpad close by. It is the opposite of ticking through a list of top attractions — and if you are planning a trip through this part of Texas, it might be the only way to experience it.

Getting to Know Alpine, Texas

Alpine sits at 4,462 feet — close to a mile high, with the surrounding peaks going even higher. It is a reminder of just how varied Texas geography really is. The downtown is small, historic, and entirely walkable: restored buildings now housing shops, cafés, and restaurants, the kind of main street that makes you feel like you should be wearing a cowboy hat and boots. As a native Texan, that feeling is a compliment.

Asking for directions here — unlikely as you’ll need to, given the size of town — and you’ll get something like: take a right at the gas station, a left at the hardware store, and Doris at the register can help if you’re still lost. Compare that to home, where asking for directions usually earns a puzzled look and a suggestion to “just use GPS.” Fair enough, maybe, but I miss the Alpine method.

Where to Stay: The Historic Holland Hotel

I stayed at the Holland Hotel, a historic property on Alpine’s main street that has held onto its original character. It sits directly across from the Amtrak station where the Sunset Limited stops, making it a natural base for anyone arriving by train. Photos on the hotel’s website show riders on horseback out front next to Ford Model Ts — a small window into just how long this building has anchored the town.

Sul Ross State University and the Museum of the Big Bend

Alpine is home to Sul Ross State University, founded in 1917. Alongside standard majors like business and education, the school is known for something less expected: rodeo, including a scholarship program and the largest annual college rodeo in the nation.

The campus also houses the Museum of the Big Bend, recently named the top small museum in the country by a Best Reader’s Choice Award — and after visiting, it is easy to see why. It combines a historical museum centered on Big Bend National Park with an active art museum; an Andy Warhol exhibit, “Cowboys and Indians,” happened to open during my stay. One exhibit explained the letters “GTT” — “Going to Texas” — the standard 19th-century farewell for anyone leaving home for what was then considered the promised land. Text-message shorthand, a century and a half early. If you visit Alpine, the museum and a walk around campus belong on the itinerary.

Beyond Alpine: Big Bend, Marfa, and the Davis Mountains

Alpine works well as a base for the wider region:

– Big Bend National Park — over 1,200 square miles, a short drive away.

– Marathon — home to the Gage Hotel and the northern gateway to Big Bend, known for dark skies and stargazing.

– Marfa— the area’s art-world darling, known for its galleries, the Marfa Lights, and a steady stream of celebrity visitors.

– Fort Davis — a frontier military post established in 1854.

– The Davis Mountains— volcanic in origin, cresting above 8,300 feet.

Is Alpine Worth the Detour?

Alpine is not a place you pass through by accident — it must be an intentional stop on a longer trip, well outside the Texas cities most travelers already know. But that distance is exactly what makes it valuable: understanding Texas, past and present, means understanding places like this one, not just its skylines.

Three days here gave me something I did not expect going in — a feel for a town and a region that would end up looking nothing like the big cities still ahead of me on an 11,000-mile trip. The people were consistently generous, quick with directions, open to conversation, setting a tone that held for the rest of the journey. By the end, I had settled into Alpine’s pace and genuinely enjoyed the slow travel detour it forced on me.

Still, when the Sunset Limited finally rolled back into the station, I was ready to be moving again.

More information on Alpine.