What should I avoid in Austin?

East Sixth Street, between Congress Avenue and I-35, is where first-timers usually get sent, and most Austinites avoid it. On Friday and Saturday nights it tends to be closed to cars, and by midnight the pavement smells of spilled Lone Star and fryer grease, the strip packed with bachelor parties, cheap well shots, and cover bands blasting "Sweet Caroline" through blown speakers. In June 2021 a shooting there wounded more than a dozen people. TTDI rates Austin 7.0 out of 10 for solo-traveler safety (see the TTDI Solo-Safety Index), and solo visitors should stay most alert on Sixth late at night. Walk a few blocks to the Red River Cultural District instead: Mohawk, Stubb's and Cheer Up Charlies book original acts, and they are loud in the right way. Rainey Street, south of Cesar Chavez, gets its own bachelorette crowd on Saturdays, so go on a Tuesday if you want the bungalow bars quiet. Pedicab drivers on Sixth set their own fares, so agree on the total price, not a per-person price, before you sit down.

Franklin Barbecue on East 11th Street opens at 11am, and on weekends the line can start before 8am: that means three or four hours on hot concrete, and the brisket may still sell out by early afternoon. It is excellent brisket. It is not worth half your first day. Terry Black's on Barton Springs Road serves peppery brisket with a deep smoke ring, and its line usually moves in 30 to 45 minutes. La Barbecue on East Cesar Chavez Street is a close rival. Skip Torchy's Tacos as well, a chain with well over 100 locations whose Trailer Park taco tastes the same in Dallas. For breakfast, order the migas taco at Veracruz All Natural: crushed tortilla chips crackle inside soft scrambled egg, and it costs around $5. Queso is the warm orange cheese dip on every Tex-Mex menu in town, and it is a safe first order at Matt's El Rancho on South Lamar Boulevard.

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport sits about 8 miles southeast of downtown. Rideshare fares from the Barbara Jordan Terminal can double after a big festival day, which makes CapMetro's Route 20 bus worth knowing: $1.25 from the terminal to downtown, roughly 30 minutes. Don't plan any drive on I-35 between 4pm and 7pm. The I-35 Capital Express Central rebuild has torn up the highway through downtown, and a 10-minute hop can stretch to 40. Downtown parking has its own trap: in early 2024 the City of Austin found fraudulent QR-code stickers on nearly 30 of its parking pay stations, so pay through the official Park ATX app or the machine's own keypad. Electric scooters are cheap, but a 2018 study by Austin Public Health and the CDC counted about 20 injured riders per 100,000 trips, and many of those injuries were to the head.

Austin City Limits Weekend Two starts at Zilker Park on Friday 9 October, and Barton Springs Road and the streets around Zilker jam from noon until well past midnight. Book near the Texas State Capitol or in Hyde Park and take a bus in. Fake ACL wristbands turn up on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace every year, so buy through the festival's official resale and nowhere else. This morning was 19.9°C, clear and humid. Afternoons in October can still feel sticky, so spend 2pm to 5pm inside the Blanton Museum of Art, founded in 1963, or the LBJ Library, which opened in 1971. Central Texas is known as Flash Flood Alley, and an October thunderstorm can flood a low-water crossing within minutes. The yellow signs say Turn Around, Don't Drown, and they mean it. Around 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats live under the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge until roughly early November; watch them from the grassy south bank at dusk, where the musky ammonia smell is fainter than on the crowded bridge sidewalk.