Cheap flights to Austin

Quick summary

Identity

From a frontier outpost called Waterloo to the tech capital of the South

Before it was Austin, the settlement on the banks of the Colorado River was known as Waterloo, a small frontier town chosen in 1839 by the Republic of Texas as the site for its new capital and renamed after Stephen F. Austin, the empresario remembered as the "Father of Texas." What started as a compact grid of streets built around Congress Avenue has grown, in the space of a generation, into one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the country, now home to close to a million residents and nicknamed "Silicon Hills" for the wave of tech companies that followed the University of Texas graduates who never left. Despite the growth, Austin has held on to the slogan its own city council made official in the 1990s: Live Music Capital of the World.

Not to be missed

The Texas Capitol and Congress Avenue

Finished in 1888 out of pink granite quarried near Marble Falls, the Texas State Capitol was deliberately built taller than its counterpart in Washington, D.C. — a fact locals will happily point out. Congress Avenue runs in a dead-straight line toward its dome, a piece of city planning laid out from the very beginning. Free guided tours run on weekdays and take visitors through the rotunda, the House and Senate chambers, and portraits of every Texas governor since statehood, while the surrounding grounds hold nineteen monuments marking milestones of Texas history.

Only in Austin

1.5 million bats under the Congress Avenue Bridge

Every evening between roughly March and October, the largest urban bat colony in North America streams out from underneath the Congress Avenue Bridge over Lady Bird Lake — an estimated 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats heading out to feed, watched for free from the bridge, the surrounding banks or a kayak on the water. Lady Bird Lake itself, a dammed stretch of the Colorado River running right through downtown, is lined by the Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail, a loop of more than ten miles that fills up with runners, cyclists and paddleboarders most evenings of the year.

To discover

Zilker Park and Barton Springs Pool

Zilker Park is where Austin goes to unwind — 350 acres hosting the Austin City Limits Music Festival every October and packed with picnickers, kite-flyers and dogs the rest of the year. Inside the park, Barton Springs Pool is a spring-fed swimming hole that holds a near-constant 68°F (20°C) year-round, a welcome relief when the Texas summer routinely pushes past 100°F (38°C) between June and August.

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Neighborhoods

Sixth Street, South Congress and East Austin

Downtown, Sixth Street is where Austin's reputation as a live-music town gets loud: several blocks of bars and stages with bands playing most nights of the week, and the epicenter of South by Southwest every March, when the festival pulls in hundreds of thousands of visitors over ten days. Across the river, South Congress Avenue — "SoCo" to locals — evolved from a rough stretch of highway into a strip of vintage boutiques, food trailers and breakfast-taco stands with a view straight up to the Capitol dome. East Austin, once a working-class district, has become the city's newest hotspot for street art, natural-wine bars and independent music venues, without the crowds that fill Sixth Street on a Friday night.

Food

Texas barbecue and breakfast tacos

Austin's claim to barbecue fame rests largely on Franklin Barbecue, where the line forms before 7am for brisket that routinely sells out by early afternoon — an extreme case, but a fair sample of how seriously the city takes smoked meat, with places like La Barbecue and Micklethwait Craft Meats drawing similarly loyal crowds without the multi-hour wait. Just as central to daily life is the breakfast taco: eggs, cheese, chorizo or barbacoa folded into a flour tortilla, sold from trailers and taquerias on practically every corner and eaten on the move, any time before noon.

Budget

What a trip to Austin actually costs

Austin runs a little above the US average on day-to-day spending, but it's far from the priciest big city in the country. Street tacos start around $2.50 to $3 each, a casual dinner for two lands somewhere between $50 and $60, and getting around is cheap by American standards: a single ride on Capital Metro's bus network costs $1.25, a day pass around $3.50, and the airport itself sits on that same bus line. The trade-off for visitors comes at hotel-booking time, especially during SXSW in March or Austin City Limits weekends in October, when rooms fill up and prices climb well above the rest of the year.

Austin airport

The main airport for your flight to Austin

When to go

When to visit Austin?

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FAQ

Frequently asked questions about flights to Austin