Austin is famous for being full of people who don't wake up until at least noon, and by the time they've actually found pants (in the winter) or some variety of shorts (seriously, everybody wears shorts all the time the other eight months out of the year), it's practically dark out—so if you want to figure out what to do during the day, asking your cousin who lives in Austin is probably just going to get met with, "Uhh, I have an Xbox." Cool, bro, but you didn't go all the way to Texas to play Xbox.
Luckily, Austin is fucking beautiful, so there's plenty of outdoorsy shit to do during the day, if you're into that. If you're not into that—or if it's just 110 degrees outside and you don't want to turn into a straight-up sweat puddle before you go out at night—that's cool. Indoor types have options that are a lot nerdier, but if you identify with phrases like "indoor type," that probably turns you on a little bit anyway. So either way, there's something for you to do—besides day-drink and stuff your face with tacos—before the shows start at night.
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Barton SpringsAustinites have been fighting to save Barton Springs so nobody builds a toxic waste dump or allows their semiconductor plant to drain all of its sewage directly into it for at least a generation. They've been fighting that battle for so long because Barton Springs is a goddamn treasure: It's a spring-fed pool right in the middle of the city that's 70 degrees all year round, which is kinda nice in the winter and a total shock to your system in the summer—either way, it's rad, and the massive lawn on either side of the pool has some of the best people-watching in the city. In the summertime, when the Austin sun beats down with the intensity of hell, alternating between the cold water and the lawn full of cool teens and old hippies celebrating a city law that allows women to walk around topless is a great way to feel like you're on mushrooms without spending more than a $3 admission fee to get into the pool.Hippie Hollow
Of course, if naked hippies are your thing, you can't beat Hippie Hollow, which is a natural swimming hole where rules governing public indecency have been suspended since "hippie" meant "super hot sex god" and not "smelly dude with a gray ponytail." You'll have to get in a car to get out here—it's about 20 minutes outside of the city on Lake Travis—but the clothing-optional park is definitely a part of the fabric of Austin culture.
Of course, if naked hippies are your thing, you can't beat Hippie Hollow, which is a natural swimming hole where rules governing public indecency have been suspended since "hippie" meant "super hot sex god" and not "smelly dude with a gray ponytail." You'll have to get in a car to get out here—it's about 20 minutes outside of the city on Lake Travis—but the clothing-optional park is definitely a part of the fabric of Austin culture.
Photo by Ben Sklar
Lance Armstrong Bikeway
You might be thinking, "It's 2016, how on earth is there anything still named after a disgraced cyclist with one testicle?" The answer to that question is—uh, honestly, we don't really know, and it's been a source of contention among local busybodies since the world learned that longtime Austin resident Armstrong was a cheater. Still, if the novelty of seeing the last remaining place in the world that honors a national hero-turned-national punching bag isn't enough to get you onto the trails, riding along a shade-covered, smooth bike path that runs along Lady Bird Lake in the middle of the city should hold some appeal, especially as it connects East Austin with downtown and the rest of the city without having to deal with car traffic. Add to that the fact that the rest of the cycling you can do in Austin is hilly as fuck and in the scorching sun, and the Lance Armstrong Bikeway is still a champ, even if the guy it's named after isn't. Cathedral of Junk
All sorts of hipster cities have "Keep ____ Weird" as an unofficial motto at this point, but that shit was born in early 90s in Austin, Texas, when some weirdo called a radio show and muttered the words in a half-awake daze. That's the local legend, anyway, and at any rate, what that phrase actually refers to is stuff like the Cathedral of Junk, which is exactly what it sounds like: It's a sprawling structure on a residential street in South Austin that is a monument to the sort of crap that people usually throw away. Other cities have planetariums and natural history museums and shit like that for tourists to check out—Austin has a house where the walls are literally built out of old bicycle tires, troll dolls, cookware, broken power tools, and 60-plus tons of whatever other junk owner Vince Hanneman could get his hands on. This is a thing that's totally worth doing if only to feel like you're living in a post-apocalyptic novel for half an hour, where we need to use old VCRs and car parts as raw materials to build our homes. And because it's not a public museum or gallery or anything, you have to plan ahead—call Hanneman (his number is easy to find) before you come down to let him know you want to check it out, promise him at least $10 if you want him to let you inside, and don't block any of his neighbors' mailboxes when you get there. Alamo Drafthouse
Before long, the Alamo Drafthouse isn't really going to be an exciting thing for visitors to Austin to check out, just because the rate at which these motherfuckers are expanding means there's probably going to be one in every city in America in like five years. The reason for that is that it's a perfect concept for a movie theater: Movies + programming by people who really, really love movies + drinking + food = a really great way to spend an afternoon. There are five Alamo Drafthouse locations in Austin as of early 2016—the sixth one will open on the city's east side later in the year—that show a healthy mix of regular, current blockbusters, revivals, and rando events like a bunch of Selena music videos with the lyrics on the screen so everybody in the theater can sing along. The food is pretty good for a movie theater, with a mix of regular and vegan options (buffalo cauliflower is solid vegan junk food to enjoy during a marathon of every Studio Ghibli movie), and they've managed to perfect the art of having waiters come in and out of a theater dropping off food during a movie without being totally annoying.
You might be thinking, "It's 2016, how on earth is there anything still named after a disgraced cyclist with one testicle?" The answer to that question is—uh, honestly, we don't really know, and it's been a source of contention among local busybodies since the world learned that longtime Austin resident Armstrong was a cheater. Still, if the novelty of seeing the last remaining place in the world that honors a national hero-turned-national punching bag isn't enough to get you onto the trails, riding along a shade-covered, smooth bike path that runs along Lady Bird Lake in the middle of the city should hold some appeal, especially as it connects East Austin with downtown and the rest of the city without having to deal with car traffic. Add to that the fact that the rest of the cycling you can do in Austin is hilly as fuck and in the scorching sun, and the Lance Armstrong Bikeway is still a champ, even if the guy it's named after isn't. Cathedral of Junk
All sorts of hipster cities have "Keep ____ Weird" as an unofficial motto at this point, but that shit was born in early 90s in Austin, Texas, when some weirdo called a radio show and muttered the words in a half-awake daze. That's the local legend, anyway, and at any rate, what that phrase actually refers to is stuff like the Cathedral of Junk, which is exactly what it sounds like: It's a sprawling structure on a residential street in South Austin that is a monument to the sort of crap that people usually throw away. Other cities have planetariums and natural history museums and shit like that for tourists to check out—Austin has a house where the walls are literally built out of old bicycle tires, troll dolls, cookware, broken power tools, and 60-plus tons of whatever other junk owner Vince Hanneman could get his hands on. This is a thing that's totally worth doing if only to feel like you're living in a post-apocalyptic novel for half an hour, where we need to use old VCRs and car parts as raw materials to build our homes. And because it's not a public museum or gallery or anything, you have to plan ahead—call Hanneman (his number is easy to find) before you come down to let him know you want to check it out, promise him at least $10 if you want him to let you inside, and don't block any of his neighbors' mailboxes when you get there. Alamo Drafthouse
Before long, the Alamo Drafthouse isn't really going to be an exciting thing for visitors to Austin to check out, just because the rate at which these motherfuckers are expanding means there's probably going to be one in every city in America in like five years. The reason for that is that it's a perfect concept for a movie theater: Movies + programming by people who really, really love movies + drinking + food = a really great way to spend an afternoon. There are five Alamo Drafthouse locations in Austin as of early 2016—the sixth one will open on the city's east side later in the year—that show a healthy mix of regular, current blockbusters, revivals, and rando events like a bunch of Selena music videos with the lyrics on the screen so everybody in the theater can sing along. The food is pretty good for a movie theater, with a mix of regular and vegan options (buffalo cauliflower is solid vegan junk food to enjoy during a marathon of every Studio Ghibli movie), and they've managed to perfect the art of having waiters come in and out of a theater dropping off food during a movie without being totally annoying.
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Photo by Ben Sklar
Red Bud Isle
Swimming is cool, and we've already told you where to do it in frigid waters, or with a lot of old naked people—but what about if you want to go splash around with a bunch of other people's dogs? Red Bud Isle is the spot for that—it's a little peninsula in Lady Bird Lake with not enough parking, but a whole shitload of happy dogs running around and splashing in the water. There are signs everywhere warning visitors that people aren't allowed to get into the water, but feel free to ignore them—everybody else does—and instead have yourself a nice hour or two of swimming, throwing things for dogs you've never met before to chase after, and watching people try to get upright on stand-up paddleboards.Bats at the South Congress Bridge at Dusk
You've no doubt heard about this, but it's something that only happens in Austin so we'll recommend it here too. Bat watching! Back in the 1980s, the city built a fancy (at the time) new bridge across Lady Bird Lake on Congress Avenue. On the underside of the bridge, they built a bunch of small crevices for engineering purposes. And pretty soon, the local bat population—which migrates up from Mexico in the warmer months—saw all those crevices and decided that they had an awesome new place to live. What that means for you is that if you go sit on the lawn along the lake—or stand alongside the edge of the bridge—at dusk, you will see a thousand fucking bats come flying the fuck out of the underside of the bridge and into the night. The whole thing is creepy as hell and lasts a good five to ten minutes before the last straggler bat has emerged, and it's a pretty amazing thing to see before you go out and do the nighttime things that you came to Austin for in the first place. Harry Ransom Center
Austin doesn't have a whole host of world-class museums, unless you're really into Texas history, in which case, yeah, there actually is one of those. But what it does have is the Harry Ransom Center, an archive and library at the University of Texas campus. The Ransom Center's collection is seriously impressive—it has a complete Gutenberg Bible, one of only 21 in the world—and a banned first edition of Alice In Wonderland (one of 23). It also has the complete papers and original manuscripts of a whole bunch of your favorite authors, at least if you're a white dude in his 20s or 30s—you can see the materials the center acquired from Norman Mailer, Don DeLillo, James Joyce, Ann Sexton, and David Foster Wallace, if you make an appointment.
Swimming is cool, and we've already told you where to do it in frigid waters, or with a lot of old naked people—but what about if you want to go splash around with a bunch of other people's dogs? Red Bud Isle is the spot for that—it's a little peninsula in Lady Bird Lake with not enough parking, but a whole shitload of happy dogs running around and splashing in the water. There are signs everywhere warning visitors that people aren't allowed to get into the water, but feel free to ignore them—everybody else does—and instead have yourself a nice hour or two of swimming, throwing things for dogs you've never met before to chase after, and watching people try to get upright on stand-up paddleboards.Bats at the South Congress Bridge at Dusk
You've no doubt heard about this, but it's something that only happens in Austin so we'll recommend it here too. Bat watching! Back in the 1980s, the city built a fancy (at the time) new bridge across Lady Bird Lake on Congress Avenue. On the underside of the bridge, they built a bunch of small crevices for engineering purposes. And pretty soon, the local bat population—which migrates up from Mexico in the warmer months—saw all those crevices and decided that they had an awesome new place to live. What that means for you is that if you go sit on the lawn along the lake—or stand alongside the edge of the bridge—at dusk, you will see a thousand fucking bats come flying the fuck out of the underside of the bridge and into the night. The whole thing is creepy as hell and lasts a good five to ten minutes before the last straggler bat has emerged, and it's a pretty amazing thing to see before you go out and do the nighttime things that you came to Austin for in the first place. Harry Ransom Center
Austin doesn't have a whole host of world-class museums, unless you're really into Texas history, in which case, yeah, there actually is one of those. But what it does have is the Harry Ransom Center, an archive and library at the University of Texas campus. The Ransom Center's collection is seriously impressive—it has a complete Gutenberg Bible, one of only 21 in the world—and a banned first edition of Alice In Wonderland (one of 23). It also has the complete papers and original manuscripts of a whole bunch of your favorite authors, at least if you're a white dude in his 20s or 30s—you can see the materials the center acquired from Norman Mailer, Don DeLillo, James Joyce, Ann Sexton, and David Foster Wallace, if you make an appointment.
Photo by Ben Sklar
Mount Bonnell
If you're from anywhere they have actual mountains, you probably have the wrong idea about Mount Bonnell. It's tall—775 feet above sea level—but it's not, like, a mountain. It's the easiest tall geological structure to climb you'll ever see, anyway, but from the top, you get a panoramic view of the city in one of the quieter, more secluded spots in Austin. Step carefully so you avoid the people doing yoga at the top, but don't miss the chance to feel like you're in the middle of nowhere even though you're right in the center of a major city.Texas State Capitol
When they say "everything is bigger in Texas," they're specifically referring to the Capitol building, which is right smack in the middle of Austin, and which—in a spectacular display of good ol' fashioned Texas fuck-you to everybody—is taller than the Capitol by a whopping 14 feet. The grounds of the building are a pleasant place to hang out, with a bunch of big trees and statues of long-dead, racist Confederate soldiers to sit under. Inside and outside the building, you'll find tourists from all over the world staring at portraits of George W. Bush and Rick Perry and wondering how they found themselves in a state that took those dudes seriously. The rotunda is impressive, though, and there's a surprisingly legit restaurant on the lower levels if you suddenly find yourself famished and in need of the same BBQ or tacos that the people who govern Texas eat on busy days.
If you're from anywhere they have actual mountains, you probably have the wrong idea about Mount Bonnell. It's tall—775 feet above sea level—but it's not, like, a mountain. It's the easiest tall geological structure to climb you'll ever see, anyway, but from the top, you get a panoramic view of the city in one of the quieter, more secluded spots in Austin. Step carefully so you avoid the people doing yoga at the top, but don't miss the chance to feel like you're in the middle of nowhere even though you're right in the center of a major city.Texas State Capitol
When they say "everything is bigger in Texas," they're specifically referring to the Capitol building, which is right smack in the middle of Austin, and which—in a spectacular display of good ol' fashioned Texas fuck-you to everybody—is taller than the Capitol by a whopping 14 feet. The grounds of the building are a pleasant place to hang out, with a bunch of big trees and statues of long-dead, racist Confederate soldiers to sit under. Inside and outside the building, you'll find tourists from all over the world staring at portraits of George W. Bush and Rick Perry and wondering how they found themselves in a state that took those dudes seriously. The rotunda is impressive, though, and there's a surprisingly legit restaurant on the lower levels if you suddenly find yourself famished and in need of the same BBQ or tacos that the people who govern Texas eat on busy days.