Austin (population 978,908 in the city, 2.4 million in the metro — the capital of Texas, the self-proclaimed "Live Music Capital of the World" with 250+ live music venues and the South by Southwest festival (SXSW), and the fastest-growing major American city of the 21st century) sits on the Colorado River in the Hill Country of Central Texas at the point where the flat blackland prairie of East Texas transitions to the rugged limestone limestone escarpment of the Edwards Plateau. Austin's character is the most peculiar in Texas: the city that gave the state its "Keep Austin Weird" motto (first used as a slogan for a local bookshop in 2000, now a defining cultural identity marker), the city that has transformed from a mid-sized college town centered on the University of Texas at Austin (founded 1883, enrollment 50,000 — the second-largest university by enrollment in the US) into a major technology hub (Tesla headquarters moved to Austin in 2021, Apple's largest campus outside Cupertino is in Austin, and the combination of no state income tax, lower cost of living than San Francisco or New York, and a young educated population has made Austin the fastest-growing tech city in the US from 2017–2024). Austin manages to be simultaneously a Southern city (the BBQ tradition, the Tex-Mex cuisine, the country music), a university town (the intellectual culture, the bookshops, the progressive politics that make Austin the "blueberry in the tomato soup" of Texas), and a tech capital (the Tesla Gigafactory, the Oracle headquarters, the Dell Technologies birthplace).
South Congress Avenue (SoCo — the stretch of South Congress from Oltorf Street to the South Congress bridge over Lady Bird Lake: the street that best captures the "Keep Austin Weird" spirit of the city: the collection of vintage clothing stores (Uncommon Objects — the most eclectic antique and curio shop in Austin, a labyrinth of bizarre Americana), the boot shops (Allens Boots — the most famous cowboy boot shop in Texas, established 1977), the food trailers (the Austin food truck culture: the clusters of Airstream trailers and converted containers serving everything from Korean BBQ tacos to Vietnamese kolaches), and the iconic Austin murals (the "I Love You So Much" mural on the wall of Jo's Coffee, the most photographed piece of public art in Texas)).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideFranklin Barbecue (900 E 11th Street — the barbecue restaurant that has changed the global understanding of Texas BBQ: Aaron Franklin's brisket (the USDA Prime beef brisket, trimmed to 1/4 inch fat cap, dry-rubbed with salt and pepper only (the "salt-and-pepper" purist approach of Central Texas BBQ), smoked for 12–16 hours over post oak wood at 225–250°F to an internal temperature of 203°F (the collagen melting point that converts to gelatin and creates the characteristic unctuous brisket texture), with the black pepper bark (the crust of the brisket) and the pink smoke ring (the characteristic color from the nitrogen dioxide reaction in the smoke)) opened in 2009, won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest in 2015, named the best BBQ in the US by Bon Appétit magazine. Queue from 9am; doors open 11am; sold out by 1:30pm most days. Bring a beer from the nearby Veracruz All Natural food truck.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideLady Bird Lake (the dammed section of the Colorado River through downtown Austin — the 416-acre reservoir created by the Longhorn Dam in 1960, renamed for Lady Bird Johnson (the former First Lady and Texas native) in 2007: the urban lake at the center of Austin's outdoor culture. The paddleboard and kayak rental docks at the Rowing Dock (2418 Stratford Drive, near Zilker Park) and at Paddle (77 Rainey Street below the Rainey Street bar district): paddleboarding on Lady Bird Lake at golden hour (the view of the downtown Austin skyline from the water, the bats emerging from the Congress Avenue Bridge (see below) and the kayakers sharing the lake with the University of Texas crew teams) is the defining Austin outdoor experience.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideCongress Avenue Bridge (the bridge crossing Lady Bird Lake at Congress Avenue — the emergence of the Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) from the bridge at dusk (20–30 minutes after sunset, from mid-March to early November: the 1.5 million bats emerge from the crevices of the 1980-rebuilt bridge in a spiraling column that rises over the lake and spreads north to feed on the moths, mosquitoes and flying ants of the Hill Country: the largest urban bat colony in the world. The best viewing: the deck of the Statesman Bat Observation Center (305 S Congress Ave) or from the kayak on the lake below the bridge. Each bat eats 2,000 insects per night — the colony consumes 10–15 tons of insects nightly.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuide6th Street (East 6th and Dirty 6th — the two sections of East 6th Street that have the highest concentration of live music venues in the US: the "Dirty 6th" (the stretch from Congress Avenue to I-35) with the honky-tonk bars (Stubb's Waller Creek Amphitheater — the most important outdoor music venue in Austin, the home of Stubb's BBQ and the open-air amphitheater where Willie Nelson, the Killers and Arcade Fire have played) and the deep-set bars (The White Horse, the best country dance bar in Austin); and the "East 6th" (the stretch east of I-35, a different energy: the neighborhood bars, the jazz venues and the craft cocktail bars that have emerged from the gentrification of the former East Austin working-class Mexican-American neighborhood).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideBarton Springs Pool (Zilker Park, 2201 Barton Springs Road — the 3-acre natural swimming pool fed by Barton Springs, the natural spring system of the Edwards Aquifer limestone: the spring water (68°F/20°C year-round — cool in summer, warm relative to the winter air) has been a swimming destination since indigenous people used the springs, and has been the most important public outdoor swimming space in Austin since the 1920s (the concrete pool was built in 1929, the natural spring bottom preserved). The salamander (Eurycea sosorum — the Barton Springs salamander, an endangered species that lives only in Barton Springs, discovered in 1992 — the salamander lives on the spring bottom and can be seen through the clear limestone water).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideTrudy's Texas Star (409 W 30th Street — the foundational Austin Tex-Mex restaurant since 1977: the migas (the Tex-Mex breakfast dish: scrambled eggs with fried tortilla strips, jalapeños, onion, tomato and cheese, served with refried beans and flour tortillas — the most characteristically Austin breakfast food), the queso fundido (the melted cheese dip with chorizo), the chile rellenos and the legendary Mexican Martini (the Austin cocktail: a tequila martini in a shaker with olive juice, served in a martini glass with a salted rim and green olives — the origin of the Mexican Martini is disputed between Austin bars, but Trudy's has the most famous version: limit of 2 per customer (it is that strong).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideAustin City Limits Live at the Moody Theater (310 W Willie Nelson Blvd — the home of Austin City Limits (ACL), the longest-running music performance show in American television history, broadcast continuously on PBS since 1976: artists who have performed include Stevie Ray Vaughan, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Paul McCartney, Radiohead and Beck. The Moody Theater (built 2011, 2,750 capacity) is the taping location for the current ACL TV show and also a commercial venue (touring concerts when not taping). The Hall of Fame wall in the lobby shows every artist to have appeared on the show since 1976.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideRainey Street Historic District (the former working-class Mexican-American neighborhood of wooden bungalows along Rainey Street, directly south of downtown Austin: the neighborhood was preserved from redevelopment in the 1990s and has been progressively converted to bars and restaurants (the bungalows maintained as the physical structure, the interiors opened as bars, the yards converted to beer gardens): Banger's Sausage House and Beer Garden (the largest beer selection in Austin (100+ taps) in a massive converted bungalow yard), Lustre Pearl (the tiki bar in a converted bungalow), the Container Bar (the bar built from stacked shipping containers), and the full Rainey Street promenade on weekends from 5pm.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideTexas State Capitol (Congress Avenue and 11th Street — the 1888 pink granite and limestone capitol building: the tallest state capitol in the US (308 feet / 93.9m — taller than the US Capitol by 14 feet, a deliberate statement of Texas pride by the architect Elijah Myers): the Texas Senate and House of Representatives chambers, the rotunda (the interior of the dome, 218 feet above the floor), the collection of historical portraits (including the original paintings of Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin), and the extensive surrounding grounds (the 22-acre grounds have 17 monuments and statues including the Tejano Monument, the Texas Cowboys who Died for the Confederacy monument (a source of ongoing controversy), and the Children of the Confederacy Creed monument).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideUniversity of Texas at Austin Main Campus (the 40 Acres — the original 40-acre land grant of 1839 on which the university was built, with the 307-foot Main Building Tower (the symbol of the university: the tower where on August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman climbed with 14 rifles and 700 rounds of ammunition and shot 49 people (killing 16) from the 28th floor observation deck over a 96-minute period until he was killed by police — the observation deck was closed for 31 years after the shooting and reopened in 1999 with a memorial plaque): the Blanton Museum of Art (the largest university art museum in the US Southwest, with the James and Mari Michener Collection of American art), and the LBJ Presidential Library on the eastern campus.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideStubb's Bar-B-Q (801 Red River Street — the most historically important music and BBQ venue in Austin: the Stubb's brand combines the outdoor amphitheater (the largest outdoor music venue in Austin, capacity 2,700: Willie Nelson, Kanye West, David Bowie, Jack White and Radiohead have all played the outdoor amphitheater), the indoor Waller Creek Amphitheater (capacity 1,800), and the Stubb's BBQ (the original BBQ concept of C.B. "Stubb" Stubblefield, who ran a BBQ joint in Lubbock in the 1960s and founded the Austin location in 1996). On non-concert afternoons: the Sunday Gospel Brunch at Stubb's (the most beloved Austin Sunday tradition: the live gospel music, the BBQ brunch (the smoked brisket and the smoked sausage with the jalapeño cornbread) and the Bloody Marys).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideVeracruz All Natural (multiple locations, the trailer at 1704 E Cesar Chavez: the food trailer that has grown to multiple permanent locations on the basis of a single product: the Migas taco (the scrambled egg with tortilla chips, jalapeños, onion, tomato, avocado and queso fresco in a fresh flour tortilla — voted best taco in Texas by Texas Monthly magazine, the most authoritative food publication in the state). The tortillas are made fresh from the masa each morning. The Veracruz trailer on Cesar Chavez Street is the original location and the most atmospheric.
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