Walk the seawall in Galveston on any given weekend, or the beach access roads on South Padre Island, and you'll start noticing the same thing I have: camper vans with actual plates from Germany, the Netherlands, France, and many more EU countries, not rental stickers — the real registration from home. That rules out a rental fleet. It means those vans crossed the Atlantic by ship, and their owners are driving them around Texas on a temporary import before shipping them back. A small but real number of Europeans are doing exactly that, and Galveston has a direct reason to be where you first spot them: the port here brings in hundreds of thousands of tons of roll-on/roll-off cargo from the EU and England every year. If you're one of these travelers, or thinking about becoming one, here's a real route through the state, written by someone who lives on this coast.
The Paperwork, Before the Fun Part
There are two real ways to get a camper van onto Texas roads from Europe, and the rules are different depending on which one you're doing.
If it's your own van, shipped over: U.S. Customs and Border Protection lets a non-resident bring a foreign-registered vehicle in for personal use for up to one year, no import duty, and no need to swap plates or register it in Texas. You'll need EPA Form 3520-1 approved in advance and DOT Form HS-7 at entry, and the vehicle has to leave the country within that year — there's no extension, no exception, and it can't be sold here. Shipping it over by RoRo or shared container runs roughly $2,500 to $4,500 depending on size and route. Galveston is a working RoRo port for exactly this kind of freight, which is a decent theory for why the first plates you notice tend to be right here on the seawall.
If you're flying in and renting instead: most EU passport holders enter under the Visa Waiver Program with an approved ESTA, good for stays up to 90 days — apply online well before you fly, since processing can take longer than people expect. Your home country's license works at the major rental counters (Enterprise, Hertz, Avis, Budget) alongside your passport, though an International Driving Permit is worth getting anyway. RV rental companies will ask the same things, plus a credit card for the deposit and, usually, a minimum age of 25. One adjustment either way: American RVs run bigger than what roadsurfer or similar outfits rent in Europe. A "compact" here is 20 to 25 feet. Budget your fuel stops accordingly — gas stations thin out fast once you leave the interstates.
Start Where the Water Is
Galveston is the easy landing spot if you're flying into Houston. The seawall here just earned a Guinness World Record in September 2025 as the longest uninterrupted walkway on Earth — 10.3 miles, built after the 1900 hurricane killed an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 people and nearly erased the city. It's still 17 feet high in places, curved on the Gulf side to throw waves back at the water. Walk it at sunrise before the heat sets in. For food, skip the tourist strip on Seawall Boulevard and find a place serving Gulf shrimp and blue crab caught that morning; ask a local, not a review app. Personally, my wife and I love Katie's Seafood Market (4.5⭐).
From Galveston, it's a full day's drive south to South Padre Island — 34 miles of barrier island connected to the mainland by a single road, the Queen Isabella Causeway, which runs 2.4 miles over the Laguna Madre. SPI's water is noticeably clearer than the upper coast, partly because it sits far from the silt-heavy river mouths that cloud the water further north. Come for kiteboarding, birding, or just to watch a SpaceX Starship launch across the bay at Boca Chica if the timing lines up. For the birding, the Laguna Madre Nature Trail (4.6⭐) is a free boardwalk out over the bay, good for sunset. We always stay at The Palms Resort (4.4⭐), which btw has great food and drinks too.
The German Thread Running Through the Hill Country
If the plates on the beach camper vans made you curious about German Texas, go find it. Fredericksburg was founded May 8, 1846, by settlers brought over by the Adelsverein — the Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas — under Baron Otfried Hans von Meusebach. The town is still laid out like the villages along the Rhine that many of the founders came from: one long main street. Street signs are still bilingual in places, and the surrounding county now holds around 75 wineries, a strange but real overlap of German settlement pattern and Texas terroir. Eat schnitzel at Otto's German Bistro (4.4⭐) downtown, then drive twenty minutes to Grape Creek Vineyards (4.8⭐) for a tasting — nowhere else in Texas pairs those two so naturally.
San Antonio's Older Story
Two hours south, San Antonio holds the only UNESCO World Heritage Site in Texas: the Alamo and four other Spanish colonial missions strung along the San Antonio River, founded by Franciscan missionaries between 1718 and 1731. The missions aren't ruins behind glass — four of them still hold active Catholic parishes, and you can walk or bike the trail connecting them along a restored irrigation system, the acequias, that's still doing the job it was built for three centuries ago. Admission to the missions and the Alamo is free. Go early; the Alamo alone draws over 1.6 million visitors a year, and the courtyard fills up by mid-morning. Afterward, Boudro's on the Riverwalk (4.5⭐) is a solid dinner stop right on the water.
Austin, and a Decision About Barbecue
Ninety minutes north is Austin, and the decision every visitor eventually has to make: Franklin Barbecue (4.7⭐) or not. The line forms before dawn — regulars show up at 6 or 7 a.m. for an 11 a.m. opening, and weekend waits run three to five hours. It's genuinely some of the best brisket in the country, smoked low and slow for around 18 hours, but it will eat half your day. If you don't have that kind of time, Terry Black's Barbecue (4.7⭐) is a solid no-wait alternative, and Austin and nearby Lockhart have plenty of other pits that won't cost you the whole morning. Either way, brisket here comes with black pepper crust and no sauce required — resist the urge to drown it.
If You Have the Days for It: Big Bend
This one's for travelers with more than a week. West Texas holds Big Bend National Park (4.8⭐), 801,163 acres along a curve in the Rio Grande, and the surrounding Greater Big Bend International Dark Sky Reserve — more than 9 million acres, the largest certified dark sky reserve on the planet. It's a long drive to get there; the nearest airport, Midland, is still three hours out. But at night, away from any city glow, you'll see the Milky Way the way most of the world hasn't been able to for decades. Float the Rio Grande through Santa Elena Canyon, where the limestone walls rise 1,500 feet straight up — Far Flung Outdoor Center (4.9⭐) runs canoe trips through it — and bring your passport if you cross the river at the Boquillas port of entry.
That's the spine of a Texas road trip: coast, Hill Country, San Antonio, Austin, and West Texas if you can spare it. I'm curious what's actually pulling Europeans here in these numbers — drop a comment and tell me where you're driving from and what's on your list. Any questions? I'll answer. =-)
Willkommen — Deutsche Besucher, ich freue mich auf eure Kommentare.
Bienvenue — visiteurs français, laissez un commentaire, je vous répondrai.
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