Things to Do in Austin

If you are considering moving to Austin, Texas, you’ve probably checked out the job market, the housing market, and everything else. But one of the most important things you need to do is make sure you’ll enjoy living here if you decide to move to Austin. So, in this blog post, we will talk about things to do in Austin. There are many activities you can do when you live here in Austin, Texas. So whether you are a parent, a gamer, an active person, or whatever you’re into, there is a ton of cool stuff for you to do when you live in Austin, Texas.

Music Venues in Austin

When it comes to things to do in Austin, music is the first on the list. Austin is known for its music scene. We are literally the live music capital of the world. So, if you are a fan of live music, be sure to check out 6th Street. So you’ll find many bars and clubs featuring local artists, sometimes prominent artists, and things like that. And 6th Street is the tourist destination of Austin, but I’m telling you, every bar that you go into and 6th Street is going to have live music, and it’s all going to be really good.
But if you’re looking for something more unique, you want to head to the Continental Club on South Congress. Continental Club has been around since 1955, hosting some of the biggest names in music. South Congress has been going through a lot of changes recently. We have been losing all kinds of local venues, businesses, and things like that to big swank corporations and companies. But Continental Club is one of the holdouts, so it still remains the same as it has been for the past several decades. It’s still an Austin staple, and it really is somewhere that you need to check out if you love live music.

As a side note, live music is one of the biggest reasons my husband and I decided to move to Austin. He is a musician, and we were living in El Paso then. We would come out here for shows to go to dinner to enjoy Austin, and live out here, even for a weekend or a week. And when we finally decided to move here, the music scene out here was one of the biggest reasons we wanted to do that. We’ve seen many of our favorite bands, from small church venues to huge stadiums. We’ve been to almost every venue in Austin, Texas.
So, a couple of my favorites are Mohawk, which is on Red River. This is a really cool venue that plays all kinds of music, everything from hip-hop to rock and roll, anything that you could think of. Mohawk is one of the coolest spots that I love. And another theater that I love is the Austin City Limits Moody Theater. So these are two totally different experiences. Mohawk is grimy, grungy, kind of what you think of as old Austin and the Moody Theater ACL is very nice. That is where they are filming Austin City Limits. If you’ve ever seen that TV show, I highly recommend that you check it out. They’re filming it at the Moody Theater. It’s a really nice theater. It’s gorgeous. Lots of bigger bands are playing there, but just to say, there is so much live music in Austin, and there’s such a big spectrum of shows that you can see. Everything from tiny shows to the massive Janet Jackson shows, Taylor Swift shows, things like that, and everything in between is all in Austin.

Outdoor Activities in Austin

If you are an active person, you’ll love all the outdoor things to do in Austin. So, one of my favorite things to do is hiking up Mount Bonnell. You can see amazing views of this city and go kayaking in the river or paddle boarding on Lady Bird Lake. These are all some of my favorite things to do in Austin when I want to just go outside, be part of the city, and feel like you’re soaking everything in.

Mount Bonnell is in one of Austin’s most beautiful and sought-after neighborhoods. You will pass gorgeous houses as you drive up the winding roads before traversing Mount Bonnell. So once you park, you’re going to make the 102 stair climb all the way to the top, where you’ll have a fantastic view of the river and the city. It’s really, really beautiful up there. Coming to the top of Mount Bonnell for a sunrise or sunset is one of the coolest experiences in Austin.

Arcade Games in Austin

One of my favorite indoor activities in Austin is going to Pinballz. So Pinballz is like an adult arcade. They have over 200 classic and modern arcade games. It’s one of our favorite places to go. They have a few different locations, and what I really like about it is that if you’ve been to Dave and Buster’s somewhere like that, it’s all brand new games, bright and shiny, loud sounds, and lights everywhere. Pinballz is not that. So Pinballz has older games. They literally have tons of pinball machines. If you’re more of the indoor-type, arcade games is definitely one of the things to do in Austin.

My husband loves to play the original Mortal Kombat, so they’ve got the original Mortal Kombat. They’ve got games like Joust and Original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Street Fighter, all of those things. So it’s more of an old-school video game vibe versus the new bright and flashy things. I mentioned there are a few different locations. The Pinballz up North has an awesome food menu and good drinks.
They have one of the best whiskey bars in Austin, believe it or not. I would not expect to see that somewhere like Pinballz, but they also have go-karts and ax throwing and just a lot of really cool stuff. So it’s somewhere that you can spend several hours if you are trying to get away from the heat or you just really don’t like being outside; maybe video games are more of your thing. This old-school place will take you back and bring a little bit of nostalgia into your life.

Breweries in Austin

Any place worth visiting should have food and drink on its list of things to do. So, let’s talk Food and Drink in Austin. Austin is home to some of the best breweries in the country, including Jester King Brewery, which is set out on a gorgeous farm out in Hill country. They’ve got goats. They are growing their own hops. It’s a gorgeous place to hang out and just be a part of Austin. And the beers that they make are amazing. They also have ciders; they have wines. There’s just a plethora of things that you can get out of Jester King, but the setting itself is beautiful. It’s definitely worth the drive outside of Austin.

Another one of my favorite breweries in Austin is St. Elmo Brewing Company. This is just off of South Congress, maybe five to 10 minutes outside of downtown. These breweries have two completely different styles and settings, but both are really great options. If you want something local, handcrafted, and a fun place to hang out.

Food Options in Austin

And when it comes to food, you really can’t come to Austin without trying Tex-Mex. You’ve probably had Tex-Mex before, but we do it really well in Austin. So one of my favorite places is Taco Deli. This is where I would go to get some really awesome tacos. If you’re flying into Austin anytime soon, I suggest you get the Steak Fundido taco at the airport. It is one of my favorite tacos in town, and if you’re lucky enough to try Taco Deli in Austin, the pork belly taco is amazing. I don’t know how you can make a better taco than pork belly. It’s awesome.
If you want something a little bit less Tex-Mex, a little bit less Austin-ey, I would definitely check out this restaurant called Kome. They have amazing sushi noodles, rice bowls, and bento boxes. The atmosphere is really calming and soothing. It’s a really awesome escape from the madness that can sometimes be what you experienced with Austin. The Austin traffic, the Austin Heat. My husband and I went to Kome a couple of weeks ago, and I was just like, oh my gosh, I can finally breathe here. Like it’s peaceful, it’s quiet, it’s cool. They have really good air conditioning. So it’s one of my favorite places to check out in Austin when you kind of need an escape from everything.

Cinemas in Austin

Another one of my favorite things to do in Austin, especially if you’re trying to be inside or you want to avoid the heat, is going to see a movie at Alamo Drafthouse. So, if you’ve seen any of my other blog posts, you know that I love Alamo Drafthouse. It’s one of my favorite things to do in Austin. I love them because they play like the Blockbusters. They play the new movies and older hits like The Big Lebowski, Breakfast Club, and Spirited Away. They have really good food, good cocktails, and good desserts. If you just want to go and watch a movie and have some milk and cookies, you can totally do that.

One of my favorite things to get there is the chocolate chip shake. It is crushed chocolate chip cookies in a vanilla ice cream shake, and it is amazing if you want to just sit and be cool and enjoy yourself and just be entertained for a while. I love Alamo. Another reason that I love Alamo is that they only let you in if you are under 18 if you have a parent or a guardian or someone over 18 with you.
So there’s not like kids running around everywhere. I love kids, but they can be really distracting when you’re in the movies, and you’re trying to watch a movie and concentrate. So I love that the Alamo kind of restricts that. They’re also very strict on no distractions, no talking, all of that stuff. For the most part, everyone who’s going to see a movie at Alamo is there for the movie and is there to respect everyone else’s experience. It’s just kind of a culture and a thing that Alamo is known for. So I know when I go, I won’t have people talking. I’m not going to have people on their phones. No one’s going to be running up and down the aisles. It’s going to be a great experience. So that is my little plug for Alamo. This isn’t a sponsored post, but maybe they should sponsor me.

Kid Activities

So, for parents, since you can’t just drop your kids off at Alamo and have them spend the entire day there without you, there are many other family-friendly activities in Austin that you can all do together. So, let’s talk about things to do for kids. A few awesome examples are taking your kids to the Austin Nature and Science Center. They can learn all about animals and the environment, or one of the coolest things in Austin for kids and parents to do is head to the Thinkery. So this is a really cool interactive children’s museum that’s built for kids, but really, it’s cool for anyone. It just gives them a chance to explore science and math and things like that, hands on, and just have a lot of fun kind of learning and expanding their little minds. It’s really cool. This is in the Mueller neighborhood.
I think of Mueller as a really family-friendly version of The Domain. The Domain is like a live-work-play development. They’ve got shops and restaurants. They have apartments. They have offices, things like that. That’s what Mueller is, except Mueller feels like a tamer version of The Domain. The Domain can be a little bit clubby if you’re going there on the weekends. It’s more adult fund focus. I feel like Mueller is a little bit more family or kid-friendly. They’ve got restaurants there. They have shops. They have a huge park. They have offices, but they shut down early. It’s different from a party area like The Domain.

Museums

Museums don’t often show up on someone’s list of things to do, but if you’re just looking for something different to do, I recommend checking out some of Austin’s museums. So right now, the Blank Museum of Art has a feature called Making Africa a Continent of Contemporary Design. This showcases the work of African artists and designers. The museum also has a permanent collection of over 19,000 works of art. There are a handful of museums in Austin. They kind of get overlooked because there are so many other cool things to do. But checking out the museums is so much fun, especially if you’re going with kids or if you just want something different to do. You want to soak in a little culture, a little education. You want to do something other than drinking, eating, and hiking. Also, if you want to be in the air conditioning, let me stress that again, the museums are a really cool thing to check out.

Another cool option is the Bullock, Texas State History Museum. So they have exhibits with Texas history and cultures. You can really soak everything in while you’re here, living in Texas and living in Austin. So right now, they have an exhibit called This Light of Ours, activist Photographers in the Civil Rights Movement, and it captures compelling images of everything happening in the civil rights area. These are two really cool exhibits to check out if you want to learn about history if you want to learn about just something different than what you normally do on a day-to-day basis.

And if you’re looking for something more offbeat, check out the Museum of the Weird. It is a quirky museum with exhibits like a two-headed calf and a Fiji mermaid, and you really have no idea what you’ll ever find there. So, it’s technically a museum. It’s off the beaten path. It’s somewhere different to check out. And again, just do something different, expand your mind a bit, and have some fun.
And this next one is my favorite museum. We also have a museum of ice cream. So you can learn about ice cream, make ice cream, eat ice cream, and play in the world Famous sprinkle pool. Also, this is a very Instagram-able place. That’s why it exists: you can go and take adorable Instagram pictures, but while you’re at it, you can also eat some ice cream. So, I am an ice cream fanatic. This is a really cool spot to check out again to do something different. Get out of the heat and have some fun. Since Austin has plenty of museums, you definitely should consider adding this on your list of things to do.
Some of my top picks for Austin are off the beaten path, so you can do something different and get out and not just go to 6th Street, not just go to The Domain. There are so many things to do in Austin, and there really is something for everyone, no matter your interests. So, if you’re considering moving to Austin, you want to ensure it’s the right fit for you. These are some things I talk about when I do Zoom calls with my clients. Feel free to reach out to me. I’ll help you get squared away when you’re moving to Austin.