How to Time Your Trip to Austin

The live music capital of the world welcomes you.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

General Considerations

1. Decide when you will be visiting. Weatherwise, spring is the ideal time while summer gets hot enough to avoid.
2. Get ready for crowds if you visit during the South by Southwest Festival in March or during University of Texas football home games. Parents Weekend at the end of September and the weekend UT plays Texas A&M both draw huge crowds.
3. Book your flight. Although not a major hub, Austin is served by several airlines. For more alternatives, check into flights to San Antonio, which is a bit more than an hour's drive from Austin.
4. Or map your drive. Interstate 35 runs north-south through downtown Austin; from I-45, turn south in Dallas on I-35 and continue about three and a half hours to Austin. If you drive to Texas on I-10, turn off in either San Antonio or Houston; from San Antonio, drive north on I-35 an hour and a half; from Houston drive west on Highway 290 for about two and a half hours.
5. Reserve your room. Hotels are the most expensive during October and April and least expensive during the summer and December.
6. Check the weather forecast just before you pack and plan accordingly.

Attractions and Seasonal Events

7. See the South by Southwest Festival (also called "SXSW") in March and learn why Austin is called the Live Music Capital of the World. Film and interactive arts are featured too.
8. Be awed in spring - usually April - by the abundance of central Texas wildflowers. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center - the nation's only facility that researches wildflowers - is well worth a stop any time of year.
9. Visit the city's history-steeped sites, including the Lyndon Johnson presidential library on the UT campus, the state capitol, the Governor's Mansion and the French Legation Museum.
10. Tour the UT campus, including the newly reopened Observation Tower and the remarkable Ranson Center, where the Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art houses several terrific art collections.
11. Party on Sixth Street between Congress Avenue and Interstate 35, visiting a string of night spots that offer a wide variety of entertainment. Called Pecan Street in Austin's early days, Sixth Street is now a National Register Historic District.
12. Follow the "Texas Walk of Stars" (patterned after the one in Hollywood) along the East 6th Street and Trinity sidewalks. The Austin version honors Texans Dan Rather, Willie Nelson, Earl Campbell, Janis Joplin, Elizabeth Ney, Darrell Royal and others.
13. Spend an evening watching Austin's newest famous site: the world's largest urban bat colony. Between March and November, an estimated 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats delight onlookers at nightfall as they emerge en masse from the Congress Avenue Bridge at Town Lake.

Tips & Warnings

• Remember that Austin is the state capital and a college town. Crowds ebb and flow with the legislative sessions and UT's calendar.