🇺🇸 United States · Central and South
Austin is one of those cities you fall for because of its personality. The capital of Texas but a long way from the Texan stereotype, it is young, creative, laid-back and deeply musical: it proclaims itself, with reason, the 'Live Music Capital of the World', because here music plays in bars, on patios, in parks and at festivals practically every night of the year. It is the city of the motto 'Keep Austin Weird', an independent, alternative spirit you breathe in its neighborhoods, its food trucks, its street art and its people.
But Austin is not only music. It is nature right inside the city: the Barton Springs pool, where you swim in cool, crystalline water surrounded by green; the urban Lady Bird Lake, with its trails for running and its water for paddling; the rivers and springs of the Hill Country a step away. It is the astonishing spectacle, every evening, of a million and a half bats flying out from under a bridge. It is the undisputed capital of Texas barbecue, with those briskets people queue for hours to get. And it is a thriving tech hub that has made it one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States.
This guide covers the essentials of Austin with a practical, warm eye: where to hear the best live music, how to enjoy the springs and the lake, where to see the bats, what to eat (from barbecue to tacos), how to get around a city built for the car and how to live its young, festive atmosphere. Austin is different, unbuttoned and hugely enjoyable: a city lived outdoors and to the rhythm of music.
The area was inhabited by Indigenous peoples such as the Tonkawa and, later, crossed by Comanches and Apaches. Texas was Spanish territory and then Mexican. In 1836, Texas won independence from Mexico and constituted itself as the (independent) Republic of Texas. In 1839, a small settlement on the Colorado River, then called Waterloo, was chosen as the capital of the new republic and renamed Austin in honor of Stephen F. Austin, the 'father of Texas', the colonizer who had led the settlement of Americans in the region. In 1845, Texas joined the United States as a state, and Austin remained its capital. For a long time it was a mid-sized city, seat of the state government and, above all, of the University of Texas (founded in 1883), which gave it a young, academic character. In the 20th century, that university population, together with a vibrant music scene (country, blues, rock), forged the city's alternative and creative spirit, consecrated in programs like 'Austin City Limits' and in the motto 'Keep Austin Weird'. In recent decades, Austin has grown explosively as it became a major tech hub ('Silicon Hills'), drawing companies and people from all over the country, which turned it into one of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The 'Lone Star State': Comanche and Apache land, Spanish mission, independent republic after the Alamo, giant of oil and of space, with an identity as big as its vast territory.
Read the history of Texas →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
In 1839, the settlement that is today the capital of Texas was called Waterloo and was little more than a handful of cabins beside the river, right on the Comanche frontier. Less than two centuries later, that remote village had become one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States, a world mecca of live music and a tech hub nicknamed 'Silicon Hills'. How did Waterloo come to be Austin, and Austin come to be proudly 'weird'? The answer begins much earlier, with the peoples who lived in these hills.
The region of central Texas where Austin stands, beside the Colorado River and on the edge of the Hill Country, was for millennia the territory of Indigenous peoples. The Tonkawa lived there at various times, and the area was also crossed and contested by nomadic, warrior peoples of the plains, such as the Comanches and the Lipan Apaches, who dominated wide stretches of central and western Texas. It was frontier land, rich in game and water but dangerous too, at the boundary between the settled and nomadic worlds.
Through the centuries of Spanish and then Mexican rule, this region of central Texas remained largely a distant, thinly colonized frontier, because of its remoteness and the strong presence of the plains peoples. European settlements were few and precarious.
In the early 19th century, the government (Spanish first and then Mexican) promoted the colonization of Texas by bringing in American settlers. Here a key figure enters the scene: Stephen F. Austin, known as the 'Father of Texas', who organized and led the settlement of the first large colonies of Anglo-American families in Texas in the 1820s, under permission from the Mexican government. His name would be tied forever to the future capital.
In 1836, after a war of independence against Mexico —marked by legendary episodes such as the Battle of the Alamo, in San Antonio— Texas broke away from Mexico and constituted itself as a sovereign nation: the Republic of Texas, an independent country that existed for almost a decade. The young republic needed a permanent capital, and the search fell to a commission that toured the territory looking for the ideal spot.
The choice, in 1839, was a small and recent settlement on the banks of the Colorado River, in the center of the territory, then called Waterloo. The place was picked for its central position, its natural beauty —on the edge of the Hill Country, with hills and water— and its potential, championed by the republic's president at the time, Mirabeau B. Lamar, who was captivated by the area. The little town was renamed Austin, in honor of Stephen F. Austin, the 'Father of Texas', who had died shortly before.
The decision was not free of controversy: its location, on the frontier and relatively exposed, provoked disputes (there was even a farcical episode, the 'Archive Wars', over an attempt to move the government archives to another city). But Austin held on as capital. When, in 1845, Texas ceased to be an independent republic and joined the United States as a new state, Austin kept its rank and remained the capital, now of the state of Texas within the Union.
Once established as the capital of the state of Texas, Austin grew steadily but unhurriedly through the 19th century and much of the 20th as a mid-sized city whose life revolved around two great institutions: state government and education. As the seat of Texan political power, the city built its imposing pink granite Capitol, finished in 1888, one of the largest in the country and a symbol of Texan pride and ambition.
The other great pillar was education. In 1883 the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) was founded, and it would in time become one of the largest and most prestigious public universities in the United States. The presence of tens of thousands of students gave Austin a young, intellectual, dynamic character that set it apart from other Texan cities, more given over to oil, ranching or business. Austin was 'different': a city of civil servants, professors and students, with a cultural life of its own.
That young, university population was the perfect breeding ground for what would become the city's great calling card: music. Through the 20th century, Austin developed a vibrant, eclectic music scene where country (with figures of the so-called 'outlaw country' movement, such as Willie Nelson, who settled there), blues, folk and rock lived side by side. Live music became part of everyday life, laying the foundations of the worldwide fame that would follow.
In the second half of the 20th century, Austin forged the cultural identity it is famous for around the world. The city's rich music scene reached a national audience thanks in large part to the television program 'Austin City Limits', broadcast since 1976, which showed the country and the world the quality and diversity of the city's musicians and made Austin a byword for live music. Over the years, the city officially proclaimed itself the 'Live Music Capital of the World', a title it backs up with its astonishing daily concert offering.
From the 1980s and 1990s, Austin established itself as a creative and festival hub. South by Southwest (SXSW) was born, starting as a music festival and turning into a global phenomenon combining music, film and technology, drawing crowds from all over the planet every March. Later came the Austin City Limits (ACL) festival. The city became a magnet for musicians, artists, filmmakers and creatives.
Out of that independent, bohemian, unbuttoned spirit came the city's most famous motto: 'Keep Austin Weird'. Coined in the early 2000s, originally in support of small local businesses against the big chains, the motto became a declaration of identity: Austin's determination to stay creative, original and different from the rest of Texas and of the country, a city that takes pride in its weirdness.
In recent decades, Austin has gone through one of the fastest and deepest transformations of any American city, driven by technology. Already from the late 20th century, the city began attracting tech companies, thanks to its top-tier university (a source of talent), its quality of life, its climate, its favorable taxes and its creative atmosphere. In time, that concentration of tech firms earned it the nickname 'Silicon Hills', alluding to California's Silicon Valley, adapted to the Texan hills.
The phenomenon accelerated enormously in the 21st century: major tech companies set up or expanded their headquarters and operations in Austin, and a constant flow of companies and professionals from across the country —many from the West Coast— moved to the city, drawn by job opportunities and a lower cost of living (at least at first). Austin became one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States, with dizzying population growth and remarkable economic dynamism.
This explosive growth brought prosperity, but also tensions: the rising cost of housing, the traffic, and the worry among many lifelong Austinites that the city might lose precisely that 'weirdness' and that local character that made it special (hence the continued force of 'Keep Austin Weird'). Today Austin is a thriving metropolis that combines its soul as a young, creative music capital with its new role as a major tech center, in a balance still being worked out. It remains one of the most vibrant, appealing and enjoyable cities in the United States.