Austin

The Driskill

Downtown / Sixth Street

A cattle baron's 1886 Romanesque palace on Sixth Street — marble lobby, stained-glass dome, a famous bar and more Austin history than any building but the Capitol. LBJ had his first date with Lady Bird in the dining room.

Four Seasons Hotel Austin

Downtown / Lady Bird Lake

Downtown luxury on the north shore of Lady Bird Lake — lake-view balcony rooms, a saltwater pool, a lawn running down to the hike-and-bike trail, and a Texas-inspired spa. The calm, polished base for walk-everywhere Austin.

Hotel Saint Cecilia

South Congress / Travis Heights

A secluded rock-and-roll hideaway behind South Congress — an 1888 house, bungalows and studios around a pool, turntables in every room, a lending library of vinyl and a guests-and-members-only lounge.

Hotel San Jose

South Congress

A 1930s motor court reborn as South Congress's design-lovers' hotel — forty minimalist bungalow rooms behind stucco walls and greenery, a hidden pool, and Jo's Coffee in the parking lot with live music on the patio.

Austin Motel

South Congress

A South Congress roadside motel since 1938, with a famously cheeky neon sign, a bean-shaped pool, a bar and playful retro rooms. Fun, affordable by Austin standards and right in the middle of SoCo.

Hotel Van Zandt

Rainey Street / Downtown

The music-lovers' tower on Rainey Street, named for Townes Van Zandt — a heated fourth-floor rooftop pool with cabanas, live local music at Geraldine's and the bungalow bars of Rainey right outside.

Carpenter Hotel

Zilker / Butler Park

A 1948 carpenters union hall turned easygoing hotel in a leafy pocket near Zilker and the lake trail — rooms with private terraces, open-air stairwells, a cafe and Carpenters Hall restaurant. Austin's best-value design stay.

Commodore Perry Estate, Auberge Collection

Hyde Park, Central Austin

A 1920s Italianate mansion on ten wooded acres in the middle of the city, turned into Austin's most romantic luxury hotel — five suites in the historic house, a newer inn set among formal gardens, a pool, a chapel and Lutie's restaurant.

Hotel Magdalena

South Congress (SoCo)

A wood-and-greenery boutique hotel just off South Congress, styled after a 1970s lake house — mid-century modern rooms, shaded courtyards and terraces, a poolside scene and the Summer on Music Lane restaurant, steps from SoCo's shops and music.

Austin Proper Hotel

Second Street District, Downtown

A Kelly Wearstler-designed downtown hotel in the Second Street District — lavish, layered interiors, a rooftop pool with Lady Bird Lake views, several restaurants and bars, and ACL Live a block away.

The LINE Austin

Downtown Lakefront

A big, stylish downtown hotel right on Lady Bird Lake at the foot of Congress Avenue — 428 rooms with huge windows, an infinity pool, the P6 rooftop bar and Arlo Grey, Kristen Kish's lakeside restaurant. The bats fly a few hundred yards away.

Hotel Ella

Near UT and the Capitol

A restored Greek Revival mansion near the University of Texas, reborn as a 47-room boutique hotel — art-filled interiors, a wraparound veranda, a courtyard pool and Goodall's Kitchen, with the Capitol and campus museums a short walk away.

Lake Austin Spa Resort

Lake Austin, Northwest Hills

A small, all-inclusive wellness retreat on the shore of Lake Austin — forty cottages and bungalows, a 25,000-square-foot LakeHouse Spa in terraced gardens, three meals a day from organic gardens and more than twenty daily activities from kayaking to yoga.

Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort and Spa

Lost Pines (near Bastrop)

A big, family-friendly ranch-style resort among the pine woods on the Colorado River east of Austin — a water park with a lazy river, horseback riding, river activities, golf at Wolfdancer, a spa and nightly s'mores, all near the airport.

Omni Barton Creek Resort and Spa

Barton Creek, West Austin Hills

A hilltop golf and spa resort in the Hill Country west of Austin — championship courses by Tom Fazio and Coore and Crenshaw, a Mokara spa, resort pools and big views over the canyons, twenty minutes from downtown.

Congress Avenue Bridge Bats

The largest urban bat colony in the world lifts off from under a downtown bridge at dusk — a smoky ribbon of Mexican free-tailed bats streaming east over Lady Bird Lake. Watch free from the bridge or the shore, or take the hour-long cruise underneath.

Barton Springs Pool

Three acres of spring-fed limestone pool in Zilker Park, holding cool and clear year-round while the Texas sun does its worst. The city's soul in swimwear — dive in at the deep end and you will understand Austin.

Texas State Capitol

A sunset-red granite Capitol, finished in 1888 and taller than the one in Washington — free to enter, free to tour, with a rotunda floor of state seals and the Goddess of Liberty looking down from the dome.

The Broken Spoke

The last of the true Texas dance halls, on South Lamar since 1964 — chicken-fried steak up front, a low-ceilinged wooden dance floor out back, live country bands and two-step lessons for beginners most nights of the week.

LBJ Presidential Library

A monumental travertine library on the UT campus that tells the Great Society, civil rights and Vietnam story without flinching — with a near-full-scale Oval Office, a joke-telling animatronic LBJ and a four-story wall of red archive boxes.

Blanton Museum of Art

The University of Texas art museum, with a superb Latin American collection, Old Master paintings, a redesigned shaded campus — and Ellsworth Kelly's Austin, the only building the artist ever designed, a stone chapel of colored light.

Bullock Texas State History Museum

Three floors of the Story of Texas a few blocks from the Capitol — from sixteen thousand years of people to oil, cattle and space — anchored by the salvaged hull of La Belle, the French ship that sank off the Gulf Coast in 1686.

Hamilton Pool Preserve

A jade-green pool under a collapsed limestone dome, with a waterfall spilling from the overhang — the most photographed swimming hole in Texas, west of Austin, and reservation-only every single day.

Texas Hill Country and LBJ Ranch Day Tour

An eight-hour guided day out west of Austin — Johnson City, the LBJ Ranch and its Air Force One-Half jet, free time in German-settled Fredericksburg and a stop in tiny Luckenbach — with hotel pickup and nobody needing to drive back after the wine.

Zilker Botanical Garden

Twenty-eight hillside acres inside Zilker Park — a Japanese garden of koi ponds and waterfalls, a rose garden, and a prehistoric garden where dinosaur tracks meet Cretaceous-era plants. The calm half of Austin's great park.

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

Lady Bird Johnson's living tribute to native Texas plants — 284 acres of gardens, meadows and trails in southwest Austin, with bluebonnet season in spring and an observation tower over the Hill Country edge.

Real Austin Guided Sightseeing Tour

Two hours in a small-group van with a driver-guide who knows the city — landmarks and neighborhoods, a walk through the Texas State Capitol and a local food stop. The fastest way to make sense of a sprawling city on day one.

Austin Haunted Walking Tour

An hour after dark in old downtown with a live guide and the city's ghost stories — frontier violence, Victorian scandals and the haunted-hotel lore of a capital that has been arguing and drinking on these blocks since the 1830s.

ACL Live at the Moody Theater

The downtown home of Austin City Limits, the longest-running music program in American television — a 2,750-capacity theater built around the show's skyline backdrop, with the Willie Nelson statue out front and a concert calendar that runs most nights of the week.

The Continental Club

South Congress's red-neon music room since 1955 — a small, dark, gloriously unchanged club for roots rock, blues, rockabilly, honky-tonk and soul, with early happy-hour sets, a modest cover most nights and some of the best dancing in Austin.

Austin Zoo

A shady, low-key rescue zoo in the southwest hills — around 300 animals across about 100 species, many with backstories of rescue from private ownership, plus goat-feeding, keeper talks and a small train. Skip-the-line tickets book online.

Neill-Cochran House Museum

One of the oldest homes in Austin — a Greek Revival house of the 1850s by the city's great early builder, with period rooms, an audio tour and an original outbuilding that tells the story of the people enslaved there.

Thinkery

Austin's children's museum, a big hands-on science and play lab in the Mueller neighborhood — water tables, light and sound studios, a kitchen lab, maker spaces and an outdoor play yard, built for toddlers through tweens and the adults who keep up with them.

Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Museum

A six-acre sculpture garden tucked beside Zilker Park — bronzes and stone figures by Charles Umlauf set among ponds, bamboo and live oaks, plus a small gallery and rotating modern and contemporary exhibitions. A quiet hour within earshot of Barton Springs.

Mexic-Arte Museum

The official Mexican and Mexican American fine-art museum of Texas, right on Congress Avenue — rotating exhibitions, a striking permanent collection of prints, masks and modern works, an excellent shop and the city's big Day of the Dead celebration. Free on Sundays.

South Congress Avenue (SoCo)

The avenue that sells Austin to the world — a mile of vintage shops, boot stores, food trucks, taco counters, motor-court hotels and music bars running south from the river, with the Capitol dome framed at the far end. Free to wander, easy to love.

Sixth Street Historic District

Austin's original main street and its most famous party strip — Victorian storefronts listed on the National Register, packed with bars, live-music rooms and late-night crowds east of Congress, and a calmer, grown-up scene of cocktail bars on West Sixth.

Red River Cultural District

The beating heart of original live music downtown — a few blocks of clubs, patios and rooftop stages along Red River Street, where touring bands and local acts play most nights, often for a small cover or free. Gritty, loud and essential.

Lady Bird Lake and the Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail

Austin's front yard — a ten-mile trail looping the river lake through downtown, with a boardwalk over the water, skyline views, shady stretches and kayak and paddleboard rentals along the shore. Free, accessible and the best way to feel the city's outdoor pulse.

Mount Bonnell (Covert Park)

The classic Austin viewpoint — a short climb of about a hundred limestone steps to a breezy summit 775 feet above sea level, with Lake Austin curving below, hillside mansions, the Pennybacker Bridge and the downtown skyline in the distance. Free, quick and best at sunset.

Zilker Metropolitan Park

More than 350 acres of lawn, trees and water by the river — home to Barton Springs Pool, the botanical garden, a mini train, a big playscape, boat rentals, summer theater and the city's biggest festivals. Austin's backyard, mostly free.

McKinney Falls State Park

A state park inside the city limits — limestone ledges, cascading falls on Onion Creek, swimming holes, shaded trails, a prehistoric rock shelter and homestead ruins, twenty minutes from downtown. Day passes sell out on weekends, so reserve ahead.

Harry Ransom Center

A free University of Texas museum and archive of astonishing treasures — a complete Gutenberg Bible, the earliest surviving camera photograph, and rotating exhibitions drawn from one of the great literary and cultural collections in the world.