Blending the trendiness of New York City’s Soho and the mellowness of the West Coast, Austin is unlike any other place in Texas, making it an odd state capital. Refusing to turn into just another big city, Austin has maintained its soul, thanks in part to the “Keep Austin Weird” bumper sticker campaign. As the “Live Music Capital of the World” and home to 50,000 University of Texas (UT) students, liberal, alternative Austin is a lone star in the Lone Star State.
Downtown Austin sits on the north bank of the Colorado River, between Mopac Expressway/Route 1 and I-35, two freeways that run north-south and parallel to one another. There are no cross-town freeways until U.S. 290, 3 mi. south of downtown. UT students converge on Guadalupe Street (“The Drag”), where music stores and cheap restaurants thrive. All downtown streets are oriented around the commanding State Capitol, with Congress Avenue’s upscale eateries and classy shops leading directly toward the capitol. Funkier South Congress (SoCo) offers a mix of antique and thrift stores across the river, while downtown teems with nightlife, centered on 6th Street and the Warehouse District. Austinites enjoy one of the country’s largest greenbelt systems in the country with numerous trails and pools.
Like its off-beat personality, Austin offers some funky, alternative budget options in addition to the standard hostels and campgrounds. Co-ops at UT peddle rooms with free meals to hostelers during the summer when school is out. (Call ☎476-5678, or check www.collegehouses.coop to find contact info for individual houses.) The Austin Area Bed & Breakfast Association (☎800-972-2333; www.austinareabandb.com.) coordinates several historic B&Bs, most of which start at $100 per night. Chain motels line I-35 running north and south of downtown.
Cheap fast food and takeout are abundant near the UT campus on Guadalupe Street. Patrons can often enjoy free or cheap appetizers with their drinks during happy hour in the 6th Street clubs. South of the river, Barton Springs Road and S. Congress Street are home to a range of cuisines, including Mexican and barbecue joints. The Warehouse District has swankier options. Wheatsville Food Co-op, 3101 Guadalupe St., is the place to go for groceries. (☎478-2667. Open daily 9am-11pm.)
Government. Proving that everything is bigger in Texas, Texans built their State Capitol seven feet taller than its federal counterpart. It gets its pink hue from the Texas red granite that was used instead of more traditional limestone. The capitol, its dome, the legislative chambers, and the underground extension are all open to the public. (At Congress Ave. and 11th St. ☎463-0063. Open M-F 7am-10pm, Sa-Su 9am-8pm. Short tours M-F every 15-30min. 8:30am-4:30pm, Sa 9:30am-3:30pm, Su noon-3:30pm. Free.) The Capitol Visitors Center has exhibits on the capitol’s history and construction. (112 E. 11th St. ☎305-8400. Open M-Sa 9am-5pm, Su noon-5pm. Free 2hr. parking at 12th and San Jacinto St. garage.) Don’t miss the chance to look at Dubya’s old stomping grounds at the Texas Governor’s Mansion. (1010 Colorado St. ☎463-5516. Free tours M- Th every 20min. 10-11:40am.)
Museums. Before the Bushes, there was another cowboy President from Texas. The Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum sets the public and personal life of the Texas native—who is known for the “Great Society” and his public policy during the Vietnam War—against the backdrop of a broader history of the American Presidency. A life-sized animatronic LBJ tells jokes and anecdotes on the second floor, while the 10th floor features a model of the Oval Office and an exhibit on Lady Bird Johnson, a great leader in her own right. (2313 Red River St. Take bus #20. ☎721-0200; www.lbjlib.utexas.edu. Open daily 9am-5pm. Free.) Texas has a history befitting its size, and it takes a three-story museum to tell it. The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum traces Texas’s nearly 500 years of Western settlement, with the usual hero-worship of Travis, Houston, and Austin tempered by balanced looks at the lives of minorities and Texas’s economy and culture over the years. (1800 N. Congress Ave. ☎936-8746; www.thestoryoftexas.com. Open M-Sa 9am-6pm, Su noon-6pm. $5.50, seniors $4.50, ages 5-18 $3.) The downtown Austin Museum of Art displays traveling exhibits of contemporary art, from photography to painting to mixed media. (823 Congress Ave., at 9th St. ☎495-9224; www.amoa.org. Open Tu-W and F-Sa 10am-6pm, Th 10am-8pm, Su noon-5pm. M and W-Su $5, seniors and students $4, under 12 free; Tu $1.) A second branch, at 3809 W. 35th St., is housed in a Mediterranean-style villa in a beautiful country setting with an exquisite sculpture garden. (Open daily 11am-4pm. Free.) The Mexic-Arte Museum features traveling exhibits by Mexican, Mexican-American, and Latino artists and seeks to promote cross-cultural learning and understanding. (419 Congress Ave. ☎480-9373; www.mexic-artemuseum.org. Open M-Th 10am-6pm, F-Sa 10am-5pm, Su noon-5pm. $5, students and seniors $4, under 12 $1; Su free.)
Parks. Covert Park at Mount Bonnell offers a sweeping view of Lake Austin and Westlake Hills from the highest point in the city. (3800 Mt. Bonnell Rd., off W. 35th St., 4 mi. northwest of town. Free.) Zilker Park, just south of the Colorado River, has the standard recreational facilities plus several Austin-specific diversions. (M-F free. Sa-Su parking $3.) The Botanical Gardens contain a peaceful Japanese garden, a prehistoric garden that recreates the Cretaceous Period, and a garden that features plants native and well-adapted to Austin’s climate. (2100 Barton Springs Rd. Take bus #30. ☎477-8672. Open daily in summer 7am-7pm; low season 7am-5pm. Free.) The Umlauf Sculpture Garden showcases the work of the late Charles Umlauf, longtime UT professor and prolific sculptor of wood, terra cotta, marble, and bronze. (605 Robert E. Lee Rd., off Barton Springs Rd. ☎445-5582. Open W-F 10am-4:30pm, Sa-Su 1pm-4:30pm. $3.50, seniors $2.50, students $1.) On hot days, Austinites flock to Barton Springs Pool, a 1000 ft. long spring-fed swimming hole in Zilker Park. Flanked by walnut and pecan trees and with temperatures hovering around 68˚F year-round, Barton Springs is a favorite destination of families by day and young people by night. (} 974-6700 . Open daily 5am-10pm; closed for cleaning Th 9am-7pm. $3, ages 12-17 $2, under 12 $1. Free daily 5-9am and 9-10pm.)
The Barton Springs Greenbelt and several other creek trails around town offer good terrain for hiking and biking. Free spirits go au naturel in Lake Travis at Hippie Hollow, Texas’s only public nude swimming and sunbathing haven, 15 mi. northeast of downtown. Take Mopac (Rte. 1) north to the F.M. 2222 Exit. Follow 2222 west and turn left at I-620; Comanche Tr. will be on the right. (7000 Comanche Tr. ☎854-7275. 18+. Open daily May-Sept. 8am-9pm; Sept. 10-Oct. and Mar.-Apr. 9am-7:30pm; Nov.-Feb. 9am-6pm. No entry after 8:30pm. Cars $10, pedestrians $5.) In a longstanding Austin tradition, folks congregate at sunset at The Oasis, just up the road from Hippie Hollow. With its 45 decks recently repaired from a 2006 fire, every one of the 2000 guests at this restaurant has an excellent view of the sunset over Lake Travis.
Other Sights. In addition to its thriving nightlife, downtown Austin boasts some notable modern architecture. The new City Hall at 301 W. 2nd St., opened in 2004, is one of the most striking examples. The University of Texas at Austin (UT) is the wealthiest public university in the country, with an annual budget of over a billion dollars, and, with over 50,000 students, is the backbone of the city’s cultural life. The UT Tower, a landmark in the center of campus, was the site of the infamous Charles Whitman sniper shootings in 1966.
Just before dusk, head to the Congress Avenue Bridge and join thousands of others to watch the massive swarm of Mexican free-tail bats emerge from their roosts to feed on the night’s mosquitoes. When the bridge was reconstructed in 1980, the engineers unintentionally created crevices that formed ideal homes for the migrating bat colony. The city exterminated the night-flying creatures until Bat Conservation International moved to Austin to educate people about the benefits of their presence—the bats eat up to 3000 lb. of insects each night. Stand on the bridge itself to see the bats fly out from underneath, or on the southern riverbank under the bridge for a more panoramic view. (www.batcon.org. For flight times, call the bat hotline at ☎416-5700, ext. 3636. Bats fly Mar.-Nov.)
Beverly Sheffield Zilker Hillside Theater (☎479-9491; www.zilker.org), across from Barton Springs pool, hosts free outdoor ballets, plays, musicals, and concerts most weekends from May to October. Entertainment industry giants and eager fans descend upon Austin for the 10-day South by Southwest Music, Media, and Film Festival. Nearly 1300 musical acts fill 50 stages, while movie screens show 180 films, making this festival the Southwest’s premier entertainment event. (☎467-7979; www.sxsw.com. March 7-16, 2008.) The Austin Fine Arts Guild sponsors the Fine Arts Festival, April 12-13, 2008—featuring 200 national artists, local eateries, live music, and art activities. Austin’s smaller events calendar is a mixed bag. Each spring, Spamarama (www.spamarama.com) gathers SPAM fans from all walks of life to pay homage to the often misunderstood meat. A cookoff, samplings, sports, and live music at the SPAM Jam are all in store.
Austin’s title, “Live Music Capital of the World,” is no exaggeration; on any given night, one can find literally any kind of music, from didgeridoo to jazz-rap fusion. Downtown, 6th St. is lined with warehouse nightclubs and theme bars. Mellow night owls gather at the cocktail lounges in the 4th St. Warehouse District. Along Red River St., bars and hard-rocking clubs have less of the glamour but all of the grit of 6th St. The long-running PBS series Austin City Limits (www.austincitylimits.com) tapes shows with big music stars monthly at UT. Tickets are free but shows aren’t announced until the morning of, and people wait in line all day. If you aren’t in the mood to face club crowds, try Austin’s regionally unparalleled coffeehouse scene, which is concentrated both near UT and south of the river. The weekly Austin Chronicle (www.austinchronicle.com) and XL-ent provide details on current music performances, shows, and movies.
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For 52 years, we have published the world’s favorite budget travel guides, written entirely by students and updated every year. With pen and notebook in hand and a few changes of underwear stuffed in our backpacks, we spend months roaming the globe in search of travel bargains.
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