Discover the Best Things to Do in Austin, Food & Drink deals and more!
Do you have a healthy dose of curiosity when it comes to dinosaurs? Can you recite Jurassic Park in your sleep? Do you love nature? Then Dinosaur Park in Cedar Creek, Texas is for you.
There you’ll find life-sized replicas of dinosaurs, ranging from the two foot long Compsognathus to the 55 foot long Spinosaurus. You’ll be glad you made the 25-minute drive toward Bastrop from Austin. Here are a few reasons why you’ll have a ball with the dinos at Dinosaur Park. [Read more…]
Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel sings a birthday tune for your loved one (Credit: MuZicCardZ)
Forget cake! Why not send a slice of local music to celebrate a special occasion? You can email anyone a video music card for holidays, as a love song or even an apology through Austin-based MuZicCardZ. For a few dollars, you go online, choose a favorite local musician and have their song sent straight to your loved one’s inbox.
The view from Mount Bonnell (Credit: atmtx via Flickr CC)
It takes climbing 106 steps up a historical flagstone staircase to reach the top of Austin’s famous 775 foot tall promontory, Mount Bonnell. What is now a popular destination for tourists, photographers, couples and families was once a wilder, more rural part of Austin.
Though Austinites love to climb to the top for a quick photo, what do most of us know about this iconic natural formation? To get an overview of Mount Bonnell’s development, I asked the knowledgeable Kim McKnight from the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department for details on what we should know about this Central Texas wonder. [Read more…]
Female designers and illustrators in Austin you should know
There’s an overwhelming amount of girl power in Austin nowadays, especially in the tech and startup world. We want to showcase some awesome ladies you should know in the design and illustration world. [Read more…]
Welcome to the world of tabletop gaming at Vigilante Gaming Bar in Austin
Below a strip of condos on North Lamar, battles are being waged. Warriors and wizards, orcs and elves. Card wielding combatants drink pints of mead as they clash in contests of skill, bravery and treachery. In this realm, games are serious business.
They’re also a ton of fun. Vigilante Gaming Bar, a brand new spot dedicated to tabletop and social card games, is carving out a unique niche in the Austin bar scene. Whether you’re a hardcore Dominion expert or disgustingly good at Cards Against Humanity, Vigilante caters to anybody looking for a good time, and an even better game. [Read more…]
Greetings From Austin mural (Credit: Yulia Dyukova)
Guest article by Caitlin Johnson
Let’s not forget how lucky we are to live in this weird city. Breakfast tacos, city-maintained trails, high-quality street art and endless BBQ are just some of the wonderful things we never lack in Austin, Texas. But not everyone is lucky enough to live in a city as beautiful as ours.
Below is a selection of fine Austin spots that always makes visitors and friends from out of town jealous they’re not living here–yet. Check it out and make sure to save for the next time you want to brag about our cool city! [Read more…]
Lone Star Moto bikes in front of Circuit of The Americas (Credit: Lone Star Moto Rentals)
Sometimes I imagine myself riding a motorcycle through Texas Hill Country in an Easy Rider-esque montage. Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild” plays as the camera slowly pans past my rotating front tire. Longhorns stop grazing, mouths agape, to watch me roar past bluebonnet fields and over rolling hills. Austin shrinks in my mirrors as I ride west to discover myself, and America along the way.
I am as free as a bird, and this bird you cannot change.
But then the film goes off the reel as I’m snapped awake to bumper-to-bumper I-35 traffic. I taste gasoline fumes, hear a cacophony of horns, and see the frustration of tech workers stuck heading downtown. There is no guitar-filled Americana here.
Luckily for us city folk, Lone Star Moto Rentals exists to help us channel our inner road warrior. Lone Star is an Austin-only shop that rents motorcycles five days a week (including weekends). The idea is simple. Anybody with a valid motorcycle license can visit them and choose one of their motorcycles to ride for the day. [Read more…]
What would a hotel-based escape room be without a Wes Anderson-esque bellhop? (Credit: The Seventh Room)
Are you looking for a way to summon your powers of logic, observation and deduction? Do you need an affordable place to take out of town guests, especially those with kids? Want a fun way to blow off steam after exams? Look no further than one of these Austin escape rooms.
Every escape room has a similar overarching purpose: get a group of people together to solve a series of clues embedded in nearly every object in a room (or rooms). The following are four of the finest Austin escape rooms and what makes each one unique. They change out their themes to keep things fresh, but the standbys include some heist operation, some physical escape as from a prison or a sinking or hijacked ship, and some save-the-world spy mission. Whichever scenario you choose, you can count on having fun. [Read more…]
Chocolaterie Tessa is not your usual chocolate store (Credit: Jessica Pino)
Finding the perfect gift can be a struggle. You want to give something thoughtful, but also something that won’t go to waste, or worse, be re-gifted. I’m happy to announce I’ve finally found the perfect gift! It can be given on any occasion, to men and women. It’s a gift guaranteed to be shared, but never re-gifted. And, best of all, it’s made right here in Austin, Texas. I’m talking about handmade chocolates from Chocolaterie Tessa.
This local chocolate shop in north Austin will protect you from any gift-giving faux pas. I recently met with Tessa Halstead for a tour of her factory, and to learn more about her handmade, small-batch chocolates. [Read more…]
Switch Cowork transforms existing Austin restaurants and bars into unique co-working spaces
Working from home seems pretty glamorous: controlling your own hours, guiding your own fate, wearing nothing but sweatpants.
Take it from someone who has lived that life, though. The shine wears off pretty quickly, and the walls can seem to close in around you. It can become lonely, and you can become nocturnal and a hermit.
Enter co-working spaces. Austin has experienced an explosion of them as digital professionals, startups and entrepreneurs seek enjoyable ways to work among others. Community and collaboration are everything–the cornerstones of the co-working way of life.
I recently spent a day working in a space that takes these cornerstones and adds a third: innovation. [Read more…]