Discover Austin: A Self-Guided Tour

The Texas State Capitol at 1100 Congress Avenue stands 302 feet, 8 inches tall as the 6th-tallest state capitol building in America and 14 feet taller than the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC. Completed 1888 after a 3-million-acre land swap to fund construction, the building's 360,000 square feet of pink Sunset Red granite from Granite Mountain in Marble Falls house the Texas Legislature's Senate and House chambers. Free self-guided tours access the rotunda with its 218-foot-diameter Texas state seal viewed from below, the terrazzo floor in the chamber with 5,000+ brass pieces, and the Capitol grounds' 22 acres.

Congress Avenue Bridge crossing Lady Bird Lake houses North America's largest urban bat colony — 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats roosting beneath the bridge from March through November, emerging at sunset (times vary 7-8:30 PM) in spectacular swarms that consume 10,000-20,000 pounds of mosquitoes and agricultural pests each night. The Statesman Bat Observation Center, the Austin American-Statesman parking lot, and Lady Bird Lake boats offer prime viewing. During peak summer months (July-August), emergence begins 7:45-8:15 PM; free to view from multiple vantage points.

Barton Springs Pool in Zilker Park is a 3-acre spring-fed pool maintaining 68°F (20°C) year-round from the Edwards Aquifer, one of the largest natural swimming pools in the USA. The pool is 900 feet long with depths reaching 18 feet, producing 27 million gallons daily from the underground spring system. Zilker Park's 351 acres surrounding the pool contain the Zilker Botanical Garden, the Umlauf Sculpture Garden, the Austin Nature Center, and the

South Congress Avenue from the river south to Oltorf Street forms Austin's quirkiest shopping district with vintage clothing stores, Allen Boots (Austin's oldest western wear shop since 1977), the iconic 'I love you so much' graffiti wall, the University Co-Op, and the Hotel San José boutique hotel. The corridor hosts art walks the first Thursday of each month and the Blue Genie Art Bazaar each holiday season. Food trucks line the street corners including the Picnik healthy food truck and the Tumble 22 hot chicken truck.

6th Street between Congress Avenue and I-35 hosts 70+ live music venues, bars, and clubs packed into 7 blocks of the Dirty Sixth, while the Rainey Street Historic District south of the Capitol converted 1920s-1940s bungalows into 20+ bars with craft cocktails, beer gardens, and food trucks. Antone's on Sixth Street has hosted blues legends since 1975, The Continental Club at 1315 South Congress operates since 1957, and the Broken Spoke on South Lamar preserves honky-tonk tradition with Willie Nelson's Texas swing tradition.

The University of Texas at Austin campus spans 431 acres around the 307-foot UT Tower (1937) at Main Building, where the Tower's observation deck on the 27th floor offers 360-degree views of Austin (reservations required, $8). The LBJ Presidential Library at 2313 Red River Street preserves 45 million pages of papers from Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency with a 10-story archive. The Blanton Museum of Art on campus holds 21,000 works including Latin American masterpieces, Renaissance and Baroque paintings, and Ellsworth Kelly's Austin chapel installed 2018.

Mount Bonnell at 3800 Mount Bonnell Road rises 775 feet above the Colorado River, Austin's highest natural point, accessible via 102 stone steps leading to covered pavilions with 360-degree views of the downtown skyline, Lake Austin, and the Hill Country. Lady Bird Lake (the former Town Lake renamed for the First Lady in 2007) forms a 416-acre reservoir through downtown Austin with the 10-mile hike-and-bike trail circling the entire shoreline, passing Auditorium Shores, the Zilker Park peninsula, and multiple kayak/SUP rental outposts.