Austin in a Weekendfeatured

I have this thing about not spending my birthday at home. Like if you gave me a choice between a night out celebrating or hopping on an airplane to go just about anywhere, I’d choose the airplane. New experiences and adventures are the greatest gift I could give myself anyways – at least while I’m young(ish) and wanderlusting to see this great, big, beautiful world we live in.

This trip kind of fell in the middle of a lot of other trips, sandwiched between trips to New York (to visit my best friend) and Seattle (work), so I didn’t want to go too far, but I wanted to visit a place I’d never been before. Stephanie found some decent airfare to Austin and it kind of fit the bill. I’ve been to Dallas, but never Austin, and it’s a quick and easy plane ride from Chicago (well, most times…read on below for the story on that one). There’s a ton of public art and the local food scene was supposed to be top notch and since those are basically my two tent poles for travel, I was all in.

I didn’t really know what there was to do in Austin besides find murals and eat tacos, but Texas’ state capitol is so wonderfully different and unique that we quickly realized that there was so much more to do and see.

Getting to Austin

My birthday fell on a Friday and we had an 8:10 pm flight out, so I met Stephanie at O’Hare after work. It stormed on and off all day, and right when we got through security and were looking for some snacks to bring onboard with us, we saw a rainbow! Good fortune coming our way, right?

Nope.

More storms were forecasted for the evening. Our flight boarded right on time and we took our exit row seats (score!). And just as they shut the doors and pulled away from the gate and towards the runway, we were delayed. Storms. Lightning.

So we sat on the tarmac. We sat on the tarmac for two and a half hours. The pilot was apologetic, giving us an update to tell us he had no update every half hour. Eventually, we had to taxi back to the gate to refuel, they said. The pilot announced he didn’t know if or when we’d be able to take off and suggested everyone get up, get off the plane and stretch their legs. Cool. Stretching sounded like a good idea.

We grabbed our bags and our boarding passes and walked off the plane, but just as we got to the gate agent to scan off the plane, the agent pointedly told us that if everyone got off the plane, American would cancel our flight. And that wasn’t happening on my watch: I had big birthday plans. And by big birthday plans, I mean a Double Double at In-n-Out with a birthday candle in it. So I went back on the plane.

The flight attendants were amazing. I jokingly mentioned that this wasn’t how I planned to spend my birthday (…but really though), and they opened up the bar cart to me, even though we weren’t flying in first class. We finally took off just before midnight, in a very slim window between storms, in a flight path that wound us up around the city instead of taking us on a straight upwards trajectory. But between the stress, the adrenaline and the four mini bottles of booze I downed, I was asleep before we cleared downtown Chicago.

Fun way to spend a birthday, right? It gets better.

We landed in Austin just before 3:00 AM. And even though Austin is an international airport with car rental facilities inside the airport, there were zero agents at any of the agencies and there wouldn’t be for a few hours. We weren’t the only ones with reservations, but we weren’t going to pull an all-nighter in a car rental. We caught an Uber to the hotel to catch a few hours of sleep.

Accommodations

When it comes to places to stay in Austin, there are a ton of options, from high end luxury resorts to quirky boutique hotels and a glut of Airbnb’s. We booked our stay at the Archer Hotel, a luxury boutique hotel outside downtown in The Domain, an upscale shopping complex.

There is not a single thing I didn’t like about our hotel: the staff were so nice and super helpful, the location a few miles outside of downtown meant free parking and lower rates, the lobby was gorgeous with a stunning chandelier, our room was huge and well-appointed and there were Malin+Goetz products (one of my absolute fave brands!) laid out in the bathroom.

What I loved most about the hotel, though, were the small touches that really made it stand out. On the desk were a few books that were favorites of the hotel staff and two complimentary bottles of Fiji water. And every night with the turndown service, locally inspired treats were left on our desk.

To Do’s

Eat Your Heart Out

First thing on any Austin list? The food. It has to be the food. Austin is a foodie mecca. We had so many places on our list that there was no way we were going to ever get to all of them in three days, but not a single one we visited disappointed.

Best Brunch: Irene’s. Their toast menu was A+ (and I’m still dreaming of their Veggie Toast and Frosé!), and the live green wall with the neon pink sign? Perfect for the Instas (…if you’re into that kind of thing!).

Best Sweet Treats: Voodoo Doughnut. A cult favorite that hails from the Pacific Northwest (and is worth every bit of praise laid upon it), Voodoo Doughnut has literally dozens of different options. My favorite was the Voodoo Doll, a yeast donut dipped in chocolate and filled with raspberry jelly (complete with a pretzel pin).

Honorable mention in this category to the Cold Cookie Co food truck, which offered the perfect solution to the blazing Texas heat: an Unshake, with freshly baked cookies layered between handscooped ice cream.

Best Tacos: I’m going to split this into two because tacos are kind of Austin’s thing, and also because this is my blog and I can! Best breakfast tacos, hands down, goes to Jo’s, where people line up in the early morning hours of the weekend to get their hands on these foil wrapped delicacies. Jo’s only serves a few varieties of breakfast tacos at $3 a taco, starting at 8:00 AM daily, but when they’re gone, they’re gone. And they’re usually gone fast. On Saturday, we drove by around 11:00 AM and they were already sold out and on Sunday, we waited in line for almost 15 minutes, and they were sold out of all options that had meat (but for the record, the veggie breakfast tacos are just as yum!).

Best overall tacos (and queso, and just about, well, everything) has to be Torchy’s Tacos, where they offer a robust menu of 20-ish different kinds of tacos. My favorite was the Fried Avocado taco, with a freshly fried avocado, beans, pico and an amazingly delish poblano sauce. Not to be outdone by it’s tacos, though, Torchy’s also makes a mean cup of green chile queso that’s swirled with their Diablo Sauce and is so good, I could eat it with a spoon.

BBQ: When it comes to Texas BBQ, much like pizza to Chicago, there’s a zillion places to choose from. Franklin Barbecue is the place, but the lines are crazy now that it’s been Bourdain’ed. As we were driving back to the hotel one afternoon, I had Google Maps show me the highest rated barbecue joint in our area, and we ended up at Stiles Switch in North Lamar, where we washed down pulled pork so tender it melted in our mouths with cans of Texas Honey Cider. I’m sure if you asked any native Texan what their favorite BBQ place is, you’d get a different answer from each of them and they’d all be accurate, but this was as good of barbecue as we’ve ever had.

Get a Pano View from the 360 Lookout

I love a good view, and one of the best views in Austin is from the 360 Overlook, where you can get a birds-eye view of the Pennybacker Bridge, Lake Austin and the city skyline.

There’s one catch, though – you can’t drive up to the overlook. You have to hike. And not like a paved trail kind of hike. This was a climbing-over-rocks-only-look-up-oh-my-god-what-am-I-doing hike. It’s short. Slightly intense, but easily doable: I’m not the fittest hiker that ever climbed a rock and I did it in fabric flip flops. It is a little intense, but I think the views are worth it.

Shop on Congress Ave

There’s some great shopping all over Austin, but my favorites are all lined up in a row, right on Congress Ave.

My absolute favorite is Uncommon Objects, a store selling vintage everything. Even if you aren’t looking to buy, it’s a must visit just to see all of the retro goodies. And if you’re like me, bring someone with you who will tell you that you do not need a $100 set of vintage postcards.

Next to Uncommon Objects is Maya Star, where there’s a display of neon dinosaurs holding succulents and racks upon racks of trendy clothes sitting beneath a gorgeous crystal chandelier.

And really, there are so many more. Tesoros has handmade goods from all over the world. Allen’s Boots will have you contemplating a pair of cowboy boots (even if you have literally no use for them…not that I would know…or anything…). Triple Z Threadz and their Fine Embroidered Crap (their words, not mine) is so much fun to browse through. I could keep going, but what these places all have in common and what I loved most is that all of these stores were not only locally owned, but were really unique and captured that vibrant spirit that is so distinctively Austin.

See the Bats

Every evening around dusk from early spring until late fall, people gather around the Congress Avenue bridge and on scenic boat rides on the Colorado River that runs below it. You might think they were waiting to see a spectacular sunset, or a dazzling fireworks display, but the reason they’re there may surprise you:

Bats. They’re there to see the more than one million Free-Tailed Bats that call the Congress Ave Bridge home take their evening flight through the sky.

We contemplated taking a river ride, but opted instead to watch from the waterfront, a little ways away from the river because, you know, guano is a no no. And it was a good choice, because the bats came out from beneath the bridge, swarming in a large, grey swirl in the sky above downtown Austin, about an hour earlier than they usually do (so those sold out river boat rides hadn’t even left the dock yet by the time the bats came out!).

Snap All the Murals

If I go on a trip and don’t take a picture in front of a mural, did I really go on vacation? According to Stephanie, the answer is no, and she can predict all of my Instagram shots before I even leave: coffee, avocado toast, mural, landmark, coffee, doughnuts, landmark, mural, tacos.

Much to my delight, Austin is a city of murals. Literally. They’re everywhere. I could spend weeks in Austin and never find all of them. There are hundreds. And people line up to take pictures of them. They drive down residential streets and park outside the houses of strangers to get pictures of them (and when I said everywhere, I mean everywhere: one of my favorites, the Before I Die wall, is literally on someone’s private garage).

Some of them are artistic. Some of them are just text that’s made to be Instagram’ed (I’m looking at you, Jo’s). Some of them are interactive, where you’re meant to leave your mark on them, and some of them are multi-dimensional (like the floral flamingo mosaic we found outside of one of the park district pools).

You could create a scavenger hunt, or a really fun drinking game out of it (…as long as you aren’t driving!). Or you could do as I did, and find as many as possible and take pictures of and with each and every one.

Leave Your Mark

I’m obsessed with graffiti. In every city I’ve ever traveled to, I’ve gravitated towards street art. It’s such a pure form of expression and hope.

And in a city like Austin with such a vibrant and rich appreciation for art in all of it’s forms, street art goes beyond murals, to places like the Hope Outdoor Gallery, where anyone with a can of spray paint can leave their mark.

Large slabs of concrete are covered in inspirational aphorisms, political statements and all kinds of doodles and drawings. The colorful paint doesn’t just cover the walls of the gallery, either: it’s everywhere from the grass to the sidewalks to the trees.

C-O-F-F-E-E

Come on, now. You know I wouldn’t do one of these without some coffee reccos, right? Coffee is like the blood to my veins or the oxygen to my blood or whatever the cliché is. And hopping around Austin like we did, I needed all of the caffeine we could get.

This is the third part of this post I’m going to mention Jo’s, but outside of the breakfast tacos and the mural, I have to mention that it’s been months and I’m still thinking of their Iced Turbos, coffee blended with chocolate, hazelnut syrup and cream and served on top of crushed ice. It’s so good it could be dessert.

Before we left, we made one last coffee stop, this time at Mozart’s, a coffee shop right on Lake Austin that offers gorgeous views of the water and a bottomless cup of more than a dozen different drinks, like the Iced Mexican Mocha’s I was downing like water. Needless to say, I could have fueled the plane home on the excess caffeine alone.

Enjoy That Weird Vibe

Whether you’re looking to bar hop, taco hop, take in some live music or, you know, go hiking in the absolute wrong shoes (it happens to the best of us), Austin has something for everyone. But what makes it so unique is that Austin is a big city that wholly embraces not only art culture, but local commerce, too, and the way the two come together so seamlessly cultivates something so special. A quick getaway infused with art and fun? It doesn’t get much better than Austin.