Austin travel guides

March to May and October to November are the comfortable months, with warm days and bearable evenings. Note that SXSW in mid-March and Austin City Limits across two October weekends both send hotel prices sharply upward and fill the city, so decide whether you want to be part of that or avoid it. Summer is genuinely punishing, regularly above 38°C for weeks. Winter is mild and quiet, with occasional hard freezes.

Austin-Bergstrom is only 8 km from downtown, so a taxi or rideshare takes about 20 minutes outside rush hour. The cheapest option is CapMetro Route 20, which runs to downtown in around 35 minutes for a couple of dollars. During SXSW and ACL the airport gets extremely busy and rideshare surge pricing bites hard, so allow extra time and consider the bus.

Around 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats roost under the Congress Avenue Bridge and stream out at dusk between roughly March and October, peaking in August. Watch from the bridge itself, the Statesman Bat Observation Center on the south bank, or from a kayak on Lady Bird Lake, which is the best view. Arrive 30 minutes before sunset. The colony leaves for Mexico over winter, so there is nothing to see from November to February.

Franklin Barbecue still draws queues of two to three hours, though online pre-orders let you skip it entirely if you plan ahead. The pragmatic answer is that Austin has many excellent alternatives with far shorter waits: la Barbecue, Terry Black's, Interstellar and Stiles Switch all serve outstanding brisket. Better still, drive 45 minutes out to Lockhart, the official Barbecue Capital of Texas, where Kreuz Market and Smitty's rarely have much of a line.

For downtown, South Congress and East Austin you can manage on foot, bike and rideshare, and parking downtown is expensive and scarce. A car becomes useful for the Hill Country, Lockhart barbecue, the swimming holes at Hamilton Pool and Krause Springs, or reaching outlying neighbourhoods. CapMetro buses cover the city reasonably but Austin traffic on I-35 is notoriously bad, so factor that into any driving plans.

Three days is right for a first visit. One day for downtown, the Capitol, Sixth Street and the bats, one for South Congress, Barton Springs and Zilker Park, and one for barbecue and East Austin. Add a fourth for a Hill Country day trip to Fredericksburg's wineries or the swimming holes. Festival visits need longer, since SXSW and ACL absorb entire days on their own.

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