Austin, Texas: Weekend Getaway

Both Thomas and myself have had multiple friends and relatives tell us how amazing Austin, Texas is so we decided to check it out for ourselves one long weekend. We flew into town on a Thursday afternoon and left Sunday morning, so that gave us 3 nights and 2 full days to explore.

Day one

From the airport we took the bus to get downtown. It’s about a 30 minute ride and only costs $1.25. Coming from New York that seemed so cheap!! You do have to have exact change through, so just be prepared. It’s easy to spot the bus stop when you come out of the terminal, it is the bus stop area to the far right. It runs every 30 minutes or so.

We ended up deciding to stay an AirBNB, which ended up being great. It saved us a lot of money, is located behind probably one of the coolest coffee shops I’ve ever been to, and a short 5-10 minute walk from the downtown area, meaning from Congress Ave. This studio is the specific AirBnB we stayed at.

The first night we put our stuff in the apartment and went and walked around Congress Avenue, stopping to check out the beautiful capital building and doing some window shopping. There are a bunch of cool little spots on North Congress to pop in and out of. The capital itself has a huge grassy area that is perfect for relaxing in the shade with small walking trails. There was also a really interesting monument to the African American history of Austin – definitely check it out if you are at the capital building.

For dinner we crossed over the bridge and went to Taco Joint. Now I have to say I’ve had my share of tacos in NYC and abroad but these were hands down the best tacos I’ve ever had. There was something about the tortillas themselves, like so crunchy but soft and full of amazingness…I mean, in summary just go there. Eat tacos. Be amazed. It doesn’t look like much from the outside but it’s like a hidden gem! I ended up ordering the fried fish taco and the La Ahogada taco along with a Mexican Coke and both tacos (and the coke) were awesome. You can peek at the full menu here.

After we ate we walked along the beautiful river for a little while and then headed back to the AirBNB. There is a great little cafe right in front of the AirBNB called Cenote, which is probably one of the coolest coffee shops I’ve ever been to. It has an outside garden as well as tons of indoor tables. I’m always on the lookout for sour beers and the fact that they had one on tap made me even more excited about this place. Even if you stay downtown, I highly recommend checking Cenote out. It’s the East Austin location. They have specials certain nights of the week too, for example one of the nights was 1/2 price burger night (which seemed pretty popular judging by the number of people in the garden outside).

DAY TWO

We woke the next morning and decided to continue our Austin exploration, heading to South Austin. We wanted to cover a lot of ground in a short period of time so we decided to rent bikes, which I would highly recommend. You can sign up for Bcycle, which is the shared biking company that has stations in Austin. I would suggest downloading the app as well, which makes it easy to check if there are free docks (to park your bike at) and/or available bikes and how many. You can check out the different pricing options HERE. We went with the “Weekender” option which gives you 72 hours of unlimited bike rides for 3 days.

Since we were staying in East Austin, we grabbed bikes from the dock at Medina and East 6th location and biked down to South Congress Street, where we turned them in and were then able to explore on foot. South Congress is such a unique and cool area with great shops and food choices. We opted to do breakfast at Torchy’s Tacos. Breakfast tacos are definitely a thing in Texas it would seem so we thought it only appropriate that we try it out! This seemed like the most popular taco place on S. Congress which is why we chose it. I don’t remember exactly which tacos we ordered but I do remember that they were DELICIOUS. Definitely try them in you find yourself in Austin and hungry for breakfast.

We continued on foot to stroll through the neighborhood of Bouldin which is slightly to the West of S. Congress. When we go to new places we like to spend some amount of time just seeing the areas that are a little less touristy and imagining what it might be like to live in that new city. The other goal of meandering through Bouldin was to slowly work our way over to the Barton Springs Pool, which is located within Zilker Park. We had never been to an outdoor natural pool and were intrigued.

We entered the Pool through the back entrance, which is located off of Azie Morton Road. You can pay the entrance here but the bathrooms and changing rooms/lockers are actually on the other side of the pool (at the main entrance). Not a huge deal, just means you have to walk around the pool to get to them. Most people lay on the grass on the side of the pool where we came in though (east side). If you find yourself in Austin definitely try to get over to the pool, simply because it is so COOL! Was also a little cold, but mostly was just really interesting to have an outdoor pool that is natural water, essentially a walled off part of the natural river. It’s also HUGE so even though there were a lot of people there the water didn’t feel crowded. Just remember to bring a lock if you want to put away your stuff and swim.

Barton Springs Pool

Once we had finished our time in the pool and a little sunbathing, we packed up our things and headed out through the main entrance/exit. Immediately in front of the pool is a Bcycle station, so we grabbed bikes and decided to bike back toward our AirBNB and along Lady Bird Lake. There is a multi-purpose use trail that goes right along the water all the way from the pool back to the downtown area, and much of it has at least some amount of shade from tree cover, which is key. Even when we were in Austin at the end of April, the afternoon really heats up.

It was right about time for an afternoon snack and drink so we stopped by Clark’s Oyster Bar, which has great happy hour offerings and is such a cute place. We sat outside at a table and had some amazing $5 martinis. We turned in the bikes just a few blocks away at the 5th and Bowie station (right next to Whole Foods). We then just walked over, which was less than a 10 minute walk.

After martinis and oysters, we walked over to the HOPE Outdoor Gallery, which is a community paint park managed through a nonprofit organization. You can check out the artwork and even see graffiti artists actively creating, which is pretty cool. At that top level you get a great view of Austin as well. There is spray paint for sell if you decide you want to leave your mark as well!

At this point it was getting late so we grabbed some more bikes and made our way home. We quickly changed clothes and then headed out to meet a friend and get some real Texan BBQ. There are tons of options for BBQ around Austin, but for that night we decided to get out of downtown a bit and to a place our friend recommended, which was Rudy’s Country Store and B-B-Q. We took an Uber, which cost around $15 or so from N. Congress Street.

It’s such a fun place and before you order they give you samples of the different meats to try. We ended up getting the brisket, turkey, and sausage (we had a group of 4) and sides of cream corn and potato salad. This was one of the best cream corn I have ever had, ANYWHERE. The location we went to also had a play area outside for children so it’s a great place for families also. Once we were completely stuffed, we headed back downtown (again taking an uber). We decided to grab a drink together at Upstairs at Caroline. They have a nice area to hangout and also have games available.

DAY THREE

We woke up early and grabbed a cap to the Austin Bergstrom Airport and flew back to NYC. Not much more to say about that. Cab to the airport only costs around $15. Hope you enjoyed reading about our quick weekend getaway to Austin, TX and that it inspires you to plan your own weekend trip!