We'd originally planned to go to the capital of Texas, Austin, but we soon found out that half the population of El Paso had turned up to the station far in advance of the customary hour before departure, no doubt in order to sample the world famous music scene, and had taken all the nightbus tickets. Rather than spend another night in the Mexican border town of El Paso, Dallas was the next best place to sample the heart of the Lone Star state, so we jumped on t...

El Paso may seem like an unlikely destination to be included in a whistle-stop tour of the USA's latest and greatest. And it is. The only reason for stopping here was purely to split up the bus journey between the Grand Canyon and Austin, Texas; which would've meant spending a hellish 24 hours non-stop on Greyhound. Although we were in a dorm in our hostel, we actually had the room to ourselves and found that the rest of the hostel was similarly empty - as you...