What to Know for a Weekend Getaway to Austin
For our first-ever travel guide, we decided to start close to home by focusing on Austin. The metro area may have been dethroned in recent listings of the US’ most desirable places to live, and the “Live Music Capital of the World” may not have as many striving bands and indie singers roaming around as in years past, but Austin still has a wealth of options for any visitor. Our goal here is to break down our city into a way that makes winnowing down these options and planning a weekend here more manageable, highlighting what makes each part of Austin unique in addition to shouting out some of the bars, restaurants, and hotels that the locals on our team highly recommend.
The most important thing to know when maximizing your trip here is the overall layout. For better or for worse, Austin is still a Texas city, and that means one thing: if you’re going to different areas of the city, you’ll be getting around by car, whether it’s your own, a rental, or an Uber. Austin is no longer the small town it once was, and even though it’s still dwarfed by the New Yorks or Houstons of the world, we’re still not the kind of city where you can effectively get around on your own two feet. That said, if you’re strategic and prefer to walk around (or take one of those notorious scooters), focus your time on one or two areas rather than the entire city. Read on to see our breakdown of the main areas of town.
Downtown Proper
We’d be remiss if we didn’t start with the obvious choice, downtown itself. First, a little bit of geographic orientation: while the Texas Capital is technically the center of downtown, for tourist purposes, everything you’ll probably be interested in downtown is south of the Capital. North of that is the University of Texas at Austin, which, while worth seeing and beautiful in its own right, is massive and usually teeming with the over 50,000 students it typically hosts each semester. Plus, even if you confine your explorations to the area of town between the river and the Capital, you’ll still have plenty to keep you occupied for an entire weekend.
Downtown is the home of (in)famous Dirty 6th Street–if you like to party til you drop, this is the street for you. Otherwise, the center of downtown thankfully has more to offer you than just a hangover; as far as we’re concerned, it also houses two of the best Mexican restaurants around, ATX Cocina and Comedor, in addition to elevated southern cuisine at Olamaie and all the usual steakhouse suspects like Eddy V’s and Perry’s. Post–or pre! We’re not here to judge–drinks don’t have to involve Dirty 6th, either. Downtown Austin offers the best speakeasies of the entire city, and we recommend choosing any of them: Roosevelt Room, Small Victory, Garage, and Midnight Cowboy maintain stellar cocktail programs, many of which are nationally recognized. Staying downtown also has the added benefit of giving you the widest range of hotels; our favorites are the Line Hotel or (if you really want to splurge) the Austin Proper Hotel.
SoCo
Next up is the other stretch almost everyone knows, South Congress. This could easily be considered our most “touristy” part of town, and while you won’t get ripped off the same way you would at the Vegas Strip, expect prices here to be higher than in almost any other neighborhood. Those higher prices are worth it, though; SoCo is a great central location if you want to be able to venture into different areas, with many of Austin’s major non-highway roads connecting to it at one point or another. Keep in mind that the further north you go on SoCo (aka the closer you get to the Capital), the more expensive things tend to be; locals typically hop up and down the street south of the bridge depending on what we’re in the mood for, and it truly has a little bit of everything.
For the retail-therapy-inclined, many of the nicest boutiques in the city are clustered together here, while a diverse range of restaurants are also close together–from local brunch favorites Vinaigrette and Two Hands to upscale destinations like Aba, and even two (very) different wine bars in the form of June’s and The Meteor. If you want lodging on SoCo proper, we suggest the Hotel Magdalena, South Congress Hotel, or the Hotel San Jose. We love them all for different reasons, but the EWL top pick would have to be the South Congress Hotel: housing multiple restaurants, cafes, and not one but two of the best bars in the city, it’s a foodie’s and cocktail connoisseur’s dream, with beautiful rooms and great proximity to all of the locales previously described. Grab a spot at Watertrade for access to omakase-level drinks and bar snacks from the culinary team at OTOKO, grab a nightcap at the lobby bar, and then thank us later.
The East Side
For any intrepid visitor brave enough to cross Highway 35, it’s a whole new world: welcome to the East Side. This is the neighborhood of Austin best known for its mix of urban and residential characteristics and great proximity to downtown–many of the city’s famous streets, like 6th, cross the highway into the East Side–but with its own distinct flair.
As with its more infamous stretch, East 6th has its own panoply of bars, but unlike Dirty 6th, these watering holes range from the dive bars you might expect to more relaxed patios and neighborhood haunts. For a bit of local history, check out Shangri-La, one of the last few ‘original’ East Side haunts still around; bonus points if you can find your way to the speakeasy hidden in the back, the Treasury. For another hidden gem with a highly rated wine list, APT 115 has everything a wine lover could ask for, set in what once was a studio apartment (the back door still opens to the complex hallway, and it’s not unusual to see residents come and go). Last but not least, if you’re looking for a crowd-pleaser with a killer outdoor space, Kitty Cohen’s is another local choice that typically embraces any upcoming holidays with seasonal cocktails and decorations; the owners are Jewish and go all out for Hanukkah every year.
The East Side also features its own assortment of great restaurants. Franklin’s BBQ is alway top of mind for out-of-towners, but there’s so much more to this part of town than just good barbecue. In fact, on a culinary level, it’s probably the most diverse, with Chinese, Italian, ramen, Mexican, Indian, Argentinian, French, and–of course–taco options galore. As far as personal favorites of the EWL team go, we love Il Brutto’s take on Italian classics with some modern twists, in addition to the wine list going above and beyond what Americans typically expect out of Italian joints. Paperboy is a perennial favorite for brunch; if you’re like most people and can’t score a reservation, we recommend Salt & Time or Dai Due instead.
What’s important to remember about the East Side is that it stretches out more than perhaps any other part of Austin, and some of our local favorites that we’ve featured before–Holiday, Bosses Office, and Justine’s–are all further from downtown than a visitor might expect. Additionally, as a more residential part of town, there are only a few hotels to choose from–we recommend the East Austin Hotel both for its proximity to downtown and for its great bar.
West Downtown
If you want truly residential vibes, though, the area due west of downtown–technically still part of downtown, even if it feels totally different from the high rises just across Lamar Boulevard–delivers on all the charm, with a few less traditional spots mixed in for good measure. Nestled in the hills between Lake Austin and downtown proper, this side of town has gorgeous views of the skyline from in between the old trees and historic homes that give the neighborhood its signature aesthetic. 6th Street makes another appearance here in its classiest form, with many of the bars and restaurants along West 6th representing upscale or old Austin venues that remain popular choices even today. One block in particular seems to house a surprising number of these eateries, with Pecan Square Cafe, Clark’s, Rosie’s, and Swedish Hill all back-to-back. There’s more to the area than just upscale Americana, however; right down the street is one of the city’s best dim sum spots, Lin Asian, alongside Korean fusion bar and restaurant Bar Peached. Not only that, but if you really want to drink like a local, West Austin is also home to the granddaddy of all Austin dive bars, Mean-Eyed Cat, which has seen our team get a little rowdy on more than one occasion. Since there aren’t any true hotels here to speak of given the neighborhood’s historic character and sky-high property values, if this is an area of town that grabs your attention, we recommend staying somewhere downtown to make it easier to access this beautiful area of the city.
What to Actually Do While You’re Here
You might have noticed that we’ve focused primarily on where to eat, drink, and stay; as foodies and beverage lovers, these are what our team tends to focus on whenever we’re in a new city, and it’s important for us to get to experience these aspects of a place as locals whenever possible, not tourists. For the less food-and-drink obsessed out there, Austin has plenty of options, even beyond the annual South-by-Southwest and Austin City Limits festivals.
When it comes to proximity to nature, Austin has every other Texas city beat by a country mile. With two lakes (Austin and Travis) to choose from, it’s fairly simple to rent a boat or a paddle board and get in the water. We tend to prefer Lake Austin due to its closer location right next to the city and its more stable waterline–Lake Travis can have spectacular views of the Hill Country, but successive droughts have definitely impacted its allure. Regardless of which lake you choose, we can personally attest to the magic of bringing some cold drinks and good snacks out on the water when you need an afternoon away from the city, and if you don’t want to bring your own, you can always bring your boat by Lake Austin bar and restaurant Ski Shores for a frozen marg and a taco.
If you need your nature fix but prefer to stick to dry land, there are also several hiking trails to choose from. The Violet Crown Trail is the longest and most well known of these, stretching from Zilker Park just south of downtown all the way down to Slaughter Lane, and with future expansions planned that will extend the trail past the town of Buda. If you’re angling for a bit more exposure to the Lake Travis side of Hill Country, you can hike Pace Bend Park or the Turkey Creek trail instead; both have bigger changes in elevation than the Violet Crown, and the latter has the added benefit of being an off-leash trail for anyone who brought their fur baby with them to ATX. However, Compared to the relatively civilized Violet Crown trail, both are more of an actual hike, so take the weather into consideration and dress appropriately (good shoes are a must, and things get muddy quickly when it rains).
You may not want to spend much of your limited time here hitting the trails–if you’re visiting at the height of the summer, for example, we definitely don’t encourage it. Fortunately, for either rainy or 105 degree days when you want to stay inside, you still have a range of options. History buffs should consider a tour of the Texas Capital or the French Legation to get a better understanding of our country’s second-largest state came to be. Meanwhile, art enthusiasts are encouraged to check out the Blanton Museum of Art, or seek out any of the smaller galleries dispersed throughout Austin. And last but not least, for entertainment options other than the live music that is still performed at many bars around town, you can always catch a show or play staged at the Moody or Zach Theatres, in addition to watching comedy at Esther’s Follies or Comedy Mothership.
