austin texas

Her View

Austin - Caywood's perspective

Austin: my #1 potential city to move to at the beginning of our trip. Austin is amazing, and now sits at #2 just under Louisville. Austin is such a unique city. Believe me, I’ll be back.

When we first got in to Austin we drove through downtown, stopped by a local coffee shop, and learned of the 10th Annual Bat Fest. Sadly we missed the 1.5 million Mexican bats fly from under the Congress bridge, but we will just have to be sure to catch that when we make our next trip to Austin.

Since Austin was a huge city of interest, we decided to actually get a sense of the nightlife. We hopped to a few of the local dive bars on the East side of 6th Street, enjoyed a couple of drinks, some local bands, and of course some amazing food truck food. Our first stop was at Volstead, where I got a cheap but delicious $2 vodka sprite - in Memphis that would have been $6-8! They had a local band outside so we just sat for a drink outside, sweated a lot, and met up with a friend Emily who just recently moved down to Austin.

Since Feliks and I hadn’t had dinner yet, our next stop was Liberty to get some food from the East Side Kings food truck - my favorite! I went to this bar and ate from this food truck during my first visit to Austin in June 2013 and immediately fell in love. The second time didn’t disappoint. I got some delicious fried chicken in a vietnamese bun, and even tried some of Feliks’ pork belly. After a drink here we walked over to The White Horse, which was recommended to us by another Austin native. This place was great because of their band. It was a salsa band with lots of horns, but they were playing songs (with no lyrics) like “Hit Me Baby One More Time.” And the crowd was so in to it! This was a great stop. After stopping by one more bar (The Yellow Jacket Social Club) to spend some more time in the outside air, Feliks and I hopped in the van to hit the sack.

Our next morning in Austin started with some amazing breakfast tacos from a food truck across from Spider House. We wanted to go to Spider House, but found out when we got there that they changed their hours to open from 7am to 11am. We walked around a bit then hopped in the car for Zilker Park. What a fun place! We decided to rent a canoe for a few hours and canoe on Lady Bird Lake. Definitely recommend this, and if you actually enjoy canoeing I would suggest to take a whole day. Our time was limited, so we canoed for about two hours but didn’t get to see a lot of the area. But we did see seriously the best view of downtown I could have asked for.

After canoeing, we took a quick dip into Barton Springs to cool off, then strolled along the loop trail of Zilker. This is such an awesome public park. We also saw some nice off-leash dog parks when we were driving through some neighborhoods on our way out. The last thing we did in Austin was hit up the South Congress shopping area. I remembered going to this place and loving it last time, but couldn’t remember a SINGLE detail about it - where it was, any of the shop or restaurant names, etc - other than I bought Feliks a shirt there, liked one of the boutiques, and saw a cupcake food truck in an air stream. Lucky for me, Feliks put up with my nonsense and drove around a while until we found it.

On South Congress there are blocks and blocks of unique shops, food trucks, local restaurants, and more. Feliks got a really good sausage for lunch, I got my favorite local coffee shop, and we stopped in a local farmer’s market grocery. We also went into this awesome shop called Uncommon Objects that had a ton of random antiques, collectibles, etc.

I love Austin. I love the city, I love the public parks. It’s about the same size that we were used to in Memphis as far as population goes. It has the focus on local, recycling, biking, and getting healthy that I want in a city. Can’t wait to go back - whether it be for a vacation or as a resident.

My advice from our experience:

1. Rent a canoe at Zilker Park. It’s the cheapest, and all of the rental places are the same.

2. Regardless of where you rent your canoe or kayak, be sure to plan a full day. And take sandwiches, snacks, and/or water. And WEAR SUNSCREEN! I made that mistake and am paying for it.

3. Eat at a food truck. There are so many great ones in this city. And they have a great variety - some Mexican, some American food like burgers, some specialize in sausage, some crepes, cupcakes, Jamaican, etc. I’m sure you could find a food truck for whatever type of food you’re craving at any moment!

His View

Austin - Feliks' perspective

It was pretty much everyone’s favorite city that we’ve talked to about our trip. It was built up from a lot of different angles: from the bars, to the food trucks, to the people, and the extracurricular activities available. No one ever really said specifically why I would like Austin or why they love it. At first glance, Austin looked like a normal medium-sized town. The skyline was above average with very modern buildings and a few older designs. The roads were average, had some potholes, but mostly decent driving. But it was not until we started driving through the many parts of Austin that I started to understand what people were talking about.

As we drove closer to the heart of downtown, our path was halted by the annual Batfest. Apparently every night millions of bats take flight from under the bridge, and once a year they celebrate this flight in an official fashion. And even though this happens every night, people were flooding to Congress Bridge for the festivities planned that evening.

As Caywood has been to Austin before, she was really excited to show me some of the places she had been to. So we headed to the East side. Our first stop was Volstead, which blew me away with their happy hour specials on a Saturday night. In the back was the Red Bull music choice concert that was getting quite a bit of attention from the locals. I understand Austin’s motto, as there were people from all walks of life everywhere. As we continued down 6th Street, our next stop was Liberty and the food truck in their backyard. Needless to say, Caywood’s favorite food truck won me over after the first bite. Before we even walked to the food truck in the back of Liberty, we passed about a hundred people sitting on the longest picnic tables enjoying their food and beer. It became very clear that Austin was about picnic tables, string lights, and awnings, as I was told before.

Our next stop took us to The White Horse, which had the best atmosphere of any bar thus far. The band on stage had the whole bar moving. The interesting thing is that they were playing all horns, and they played everything from Britney Spears to Easy E. After a round of drinks and a bag of popcorn, we headed to The Yellow Jacket Social Club. This bar by far had the biggest diversity of people, yet everyone was getting along and didn’t give two cents about where the other person came from. I had a moment of random drooling over some of the motorcycles parked in the driveway, especially the one with no front brake, a suicide shifter, and a foot clutch. We closed out the night, and between Caywood and I we only spent $40 on drinks at all four bars plus dinner. Awesome.

The next day our plan was to rent a canoe and go to Lady Bird Lake. I was very surprised at how clear the water was; you could see giant catfish just hanging out as you rode by. There were tons of people in canoes, kayaks, and paddle boards. I could definitely see myself doing this at least once a week. It was relatively cheap to go out for an hour and a half, and it was totally worth the time we spent. After a moderate stroll around Zilker Park, we finished off our Austin tour on South Congress. Lots of shops and unique stores, with a noticeable absence of major chains.

Overall, Austin was as cool and unique as people had described. I don’t think that I could even pinpoint the one thing that makes Austin so cool. If I had to, I would say it was the people. Even the bartender covered in tats and piercings was as nice as the elderly man at the gift shop. It definitely gave me the feeling that this town cares about its inhabitants, and they care about each other. Austin was in the top 5 contenders for a final destination, and it definitely has not lost its place, yet strengthened its hold in its current placement. Parking was medium, depending on where you are. Roads were medium; some of them needed some work.

Vintage cape topper	On South Congress
Feliks' Best Wurst bratwurst	Capitol building
On the lake	Canoe man
	View of downtown from lake
Downtown Austin	Canoeing at Zilker Park
Caywood and Emily	6th Street
Capitol building	Downtown