Austin, Texas

Texas is vast. This, I’m sure, is news to no one. It is the second largest state in the US and could fit the entire United Kingdom within its borders with room to spare. So of course there are many places to explore within the Lone Star State, and we’ve been to a few. But today we’re going to start with the live music capital of the world, Austin.

You’ve probably heard of Austin, either when you were learning about state capitals in school, or from watching Texas Longhorns football or maybe from listening to that Blake Shelton song. But when you take a closer look, you’ll find an interesting and unique city with good food, entertaining night life, and a lot of history.

We visited Austin as part of a week-long trip, that also included stops in Houston and Waco, back in spring of 2017. Austin was the last stop on our adventure so we wanted to make the most of our time there.

When we visit state capitals, we always like to visit the Capitol buildings. They all have similarities of course, but each tells a different story of that state’s history. In the Texas Capitol Building, you can visit various spaces including the House and Senate Galleries, the Secretary of State’s office, and the Legislative Reference Office. We sat in the House Gallery for a bit, though honestly that part wasn’t very exciting.

Outside of the Capitol Building, you can go on a monument walk around the grounds. They have quite a few monuments and memorials and provide you with a map to navigate around to them all.

Somehow we found out about the bats that live under the Congress St. bridge… Soooooo many bats live under this bridge. We didn’t have anything else on our agenda one evening, so we walked over to the bridge hoping to see what all the fuss was about. People lined both sides of this bridge (this is an active vehicle bridge, by the way, with sidewalks on each side) and we started thinking this was a bigger deal than we’d been led to believe.

There were people in the river taking kayak tours and floating in anticipation of these bats waking up and flying out over their heads (yeah, we thought this wasn’t the smartest decision either, but you do you). Either way, when the bats woke up and set out for their nightly hunt, it was very impressive. A massive colony swarmed out from under the bridge for several minutes. The pictures look like a smoke cloud across the sky, but that cloud is fully comprised of bats.

We definitely recommend moseying over to Congress St. for the great bat exodus. It basically happens at dusk so time TBD depending on the time of year that you are visiting. Also, the bridge is a beautiful place to watch the sunset and take a few pics for the ‘Gram.

As with any spectator experience, it pays to be constantly vigilant. We were approached by a less savory looking character who continuously tried to talk with us. I (C) took a chance that he could not speak Spanish and only spoke to him in Spanish for long enough that it convinced him that I could not speak English. I don’t think he was there to make new bat-enthusiast buddies, but by being aware (and knowing a completely minor amount of Spanish… it’s always good to know a second language 😉 ), we finally convinced him to move along and we could more easily enjoy our bat watching experience.

Another unique spot we visited in Austin is Graffiti Park (also know as the HOPE Outdoor Gallery). It is what it sounds like: a place with a lot of graffiti. Artists would visit on a daily basis to add new paintings and sayings to the large structure. It was quite literally a giant outdoor canvas, and it is listed as one of the most photographed places in Austin.

Unfortunately, the Graffiti Park we visited is now closed. However, they are opening a new location in the summer of 2019. The new location, we’ve read, will have bathrooms (always a plus) and a cafe. And it will probably only take a short time for artists to cover the new walls with their work.

Always fans of pretty plants and flowers, we decided to pay a visit to the Zilker Botanical Gardens. It is spread across 26 acres and offers views of flowers & plants, waterfalls, an old school house, and wild life. It’s only $3 to get in for out-of-towners and well worth it. They offer maps of the gardens so you make sure to see the highlights. And there are dinosaurs so…

But what about food?! Austin has some pretty tasty food (and drinks). But as we were only there for a few days, we decided to take advantage of a local food tour. If you’re limited on time, food tours are a great way to experience the flavors of the city you’re in and, oftentimes, have some of the best food the city has to offer.

We did the Austin Eats food tour, and it was one of the highlights of our trip. More specifically, we did the East Austin Happy Hour Tour. The tour took us through a recently revived area of Austin to several unique foodie spots where we got to try lots of amazing food and cocktails. Each stop included one cocktail and you could purchase more as you wished. Our guide was very knowledgeable about Austin and gave some great tips on where to go depending on your interests. We had spicy margaritas, some amazing dim sum, and a great sour beer paired with a Hot Mess burger. This tour is a must-do.

A few other spots we visited included Torchy’s Tacos (which is actually a chain restaurant with locations in Texas, Arkansas, Colorado and Oklahoma), the Texas Chili Parlor, and two doughnut establishments: Voodoo Doughnut and Gordough’s Big Fat Doughnuts. 

Voodoo Doughnut was pretty good and they do have doughnuts that look like voodoo dolls, but if you’re only visiting one doughnut establishment in Austin, Gordough’s is where it’s at. The doughnuts are, in fact, big and fat. And delicious. They are actually located in an Airstream on 1st Street in downtown Austin. We had the Fat Elvis (with bananas, bacon and peanut butter icing) and Mama’s Cake (cake batter filling with chocolate fudge icing). You can check out the rest of their menu here.

Where did we stay in Austin? The Lone Star Court hotel. Some acquaintances of ours had stayed at this hotel on their trip to Austin and spoke highly of it. So we thought we would give it a chance as well. It was a little outside of the city, but not too far. It actually sits very near to the shopping strip, The Domain.

The hotel has a funky retro vibe that we found really cool. They also have outdoor fire pits, a pool (though we did not take advantage of that on our trip), and complementary breakfast. And let’s not forget free parking. Overall, we found this a great and unique place to stay and would recommend it to those planning a trip to Austin.