Smithville Party Bus, Limo & Coach Bus Rental

Smithville earned a permanent place in popular culture when director Forest Whitaker chose this small Colorado River town as the filming location for the 1998 movie "Hope Floats" starring Sandra Bullock and Harry Connick Jr. The town's tree-lined streets, Victorian-era homes, and authentic Main Street were exactly the kind of picture-perfect Texas small town the film needed. Residents still point out filming locations with pride, and the movie has brought a steady stream of fans to visit ever since. But Smithville's charm is not a movie set -- it is genuine. This community of forty-five hundred sits on the Colorado River forty-two miles east of Austin, surrounded by rolling farmland and the western edge of the Lost Pines region. Main Street features authentic storefronts that have been serving the community for over a century -- antique shops, local restaurants, a general store, and the Smithville Heritage Society Museum that preserves the town's railroad and agricultural history. Buescher State Park (pronounced "Busher") is located just north of town and features a scenic thirty-acre lake, hiking trails through post-oak woodlands, fishing piers, and historic structures built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. A twelve-mile scenic road connects Buescher to Bastrop State Park through the Lost Pines, creating one of the most beautiful drives in Central Texas. A party bus from Austin to Smithville takes forty-eight minutes and is best combined with Bastrop (fifteen minutes west) and Elgin (twenty-five minutes north) for a full day of east-side exploration. Call 512-900-8324.