Coffees With Angel
Sign up
Exploring · · 9 min read

City Guide: Austin, Texas

The unexpected young southern city.

City Guide: Austin, Texas
Photo by Tomek Baginski / Unsplash

One of my favourite things to read on the internet are people’s city guides. Even if I have no upcoming plans of visiting the city in question, I’ll still read through the guides intently as if I was researching for a trip. I think it comes from the same place as loving travel vlogs. It’s seeing a city through someone else’s eyes, getting to know their likes and dislikes through restaurant, hotel, and activity recommendations. It genuinely brings me so much joy.

A version of the city guide that I’ve LOVED is the “What I Did and What I Wore” articles by Jordan Santos. I love everything she produces because she has this incredible talent of being able to tie in all the different important aspects of her personality and life into her overall brand and content. She’s a great role model for those who truly believe that we shouldn’t continue to “niche down” because we’re so much more than that as humans. Leaning on inspiration from Jordan and also KJ (the carry-on queen), here’s my Austin City List (hopefully the first of many City Lists!) where I’m giving you all the details to what I did, where I stayed, and what I wore.

I actually went to Austin because of a campaign launch campaign I was invited to out here by the brand Notability. I’ll be working with them over the next year to show how I integrate their note-taking app into my daily workflows, so stay tuned for that.

Here’s an overview list of all the places I visited in Austin.

My complete itinerary along with detailed reviews, city Google map, packing list, and other recommendations from the community are below as well. This portion will be reserved for Coffee Club members only, so make sure you subscribe to see the entire city guide.

Day 1

On day 1 (or shall I say night 1 because I got in at 11:40 pm), I went straight from the airport to South Congress Hotel which was where the rest of the team was staying as well. I had done a little bit of research into things to do in Austin (mostly through TikTok videos) and South Congress Street seemed to be on everyone’s list. South Congress is home to a ton of cute local shops, cafes, restaurants, bars, and even some bigger brand name shops as well (think Lululemon, Ganni, etc.). Which makes the South Congress Hotel the perfect location to stay as you’re right on South Congress, still close to downtown Austin, and don’t have to cross the bridge to get to some of the other attractions as well.

The hotel was lovely, it’s a boutique hotel with interiors and spaces that were a nice blend of industrial and artsy. It also houses a full-range of food & bevvie venues, with 2 cafes, 1 steak house, and even an Omakase restaurant and cocktail lounge. Unfortunately everything was closed by the time I made it to the hotel, so I ordered late night tacos from Bomb Tacos on Uber Eats. Not linking it, wasn’t worth it, it was meh.

Day 2

I had the Notability event at 11 am so I went to Cafe No Se for coffee + baked goods. The space was cute but coffee was just alright. My ham and cheese croissant wasn’t anything special either. Although they did have other breakfast foods on the menu that looked pretty good so I’m not writing it off quite yet. It was also a bright space to remote work from if you’re looking to do some laptop work. I found a lot of people working at the hotel bar as well.

Notability actually rented this amazing Airbnb west of downtown for the event. It was a stunning two story house with a pool and made for the perfect venue for this intimate gathering. Would be a perfect spot to rent for a small group of friends as well as it had 4 bedrooms (two being kids rooms). After the main event, we headed over to Fuzzlabs for a bit of team bonding. This was actually such a fun activity, and although it’s not Austin exclusive (tufting seems to be popular in a lot of cities now), I think it’s still a great travel activity to do. We ordered from Zalat Pizza across the street which was DELICIOUS. Really wasn’t sure what to expect but it was pizza with a twist and it was so so good. Get the Sweet Revenge pizza. I PROMISE you won’t regret it.

Day 3

Day 3 was a friday, which means I was working remotely for half the day. I got up early and headed over to try Mañana, the other cafe connected to the hotel. This was actually another Tiktok rec that I saved, and it definitely hit the spot. Mañana is actually a popular local chain with a few other locations, so even if you’re not staying in the South Congress area, I’d highly recommend checking one out. Both the coffee and the breakfast taco I got was delicious. It also has a lovely courtyard area that it shares with the hotel for you to get some sun. It was quite busy in the morning so if you’re looking to snag a spot for remote work, head there early.

At around noon, I ubered over to The Line Hotel which was where I was staying for the rest of my Austin trip. It’s conveniently located in Downtown Austin, right across the bridge from South Congress Street. The Line Hotel Austin is actually home to a super popular taco spot called Veracruz. It started as a food truck and then expanded to having a permanent spot. I grabbed lunch there and got the Good Morning Juice (Orange, Carrot and Ginger), two Al Pastor tacos, and one Shrimp Macho taco. I’m usually always an Al Pastor girl but MAN the shrimp taco was phenomenal.

In the afternoon, I decided to walk east along the Colorado River so I could make my way over to the Public Library. I mostly went for the architecture and to check out their rooftop garden but found out that it’s actually another perfect spot for remote work in the city. Headed to Book People after, a super cute Austin book shop and bought two new books to read for the remainder of the trip. They had some of the best book categorizations and features I’ve ever seen and a massive selection of books. Really enjoyed the “mystery books” section as well where you can blindly pick a book based on the handwritten description on the wrapping.

For dinner, I decided to wander down 2nd street, another popular restaurant block in downtown and found North Italia. It’s an Italian chain all across the states (although I had never heard about it) and was actually delicious. I fell in LOVE with the Squid Ink Tonnarelli at the 2nd street location in Austin. So much so that I ate it twice. I also ordered a basic salad with a side of Burrata. Are you even having an Italian meal if you don’t have some Burrata?!

Day 4

This was my last full day, so I tried to make the most of it. Grabbed the El Tradicional breakfast taco from Veracruz before I left the hotel and then walked down Congress street in search of coffee. Although Congress street is also filled with cool restaurants and cafes, a lot of them were strangely closed on a Saturday morning. I finally found one that looked promising, Houndstooth Coffee which had 4.8 stars on Google.

Coffee was actually quite good here and they sell a couple different beans so a great choice for those who like to bring home beans as a gift or for themselves. Made my way over to the Capitol building which is the largest capitol building in the US. There’s also a lovely park that surrounds it which felt like the perfect spot to relax and enjoy a coffee and book.

My real goal of the day was to check out the Blanton Art Museum. This museum was so special! They had a permanent installation of a small white structure with big stained glass windows that lit up the interior with different shapes and colours throughout different points in the day. I checked out the art collection as well. It wasn’t busy, even on a Saturday, so it’s a perfect solo-travel spot if you want to get out of the heat and do something peaceful.

My body was craving something nutritious so I had Sweetgreen for lunch. Not an Austin special (they have them all over the US) but I highly recommend checking one out if you haven’t been before. They have some of the yummiest salad bowls I’ve ever had. My personal favourite is the Crispy Rice bowl with the Sesame Ginger dressing added as an extra.

I wanted to spend some time in the sun so I brought a book to the pool at my hotel and laid out for a couple hours. The Line Hotel is also super close to Lady Bird Lake, a super popular spot for locals to go paddle-boarding or kayaking but since I started my day pretty early I was already tired by then. Got another juice and taco combo from Veracruz (I couldn’t resist) and then retired to my room to unwind and pack for my flight.

Other City Recommendations

My trip was quite short this time around but I saved a bunch of other spots both from TikTok as well as story responses from the community. Here are some more highly rated spots:

Cuantos Tacos – AMAZING reviews on Google

If you have any recommendations, email me! I’ll add them to this list.

What I Wore + Packing List

It was honestly a bit hard to switch my brain over to “summer clothing” as I’ve been stuck in the freezing, wear-as-many-layers-as-you-can mindset for so long. Since my trip was short and I mostly just wanted to enjoy the sun, I kept the outfits pretty simple for this trip. Here’s my packing list for this 3 day, 4 night trip to Austin.

The weather was beautiful while I was there, lows of 12°C highs of 26°C.

Tops:

Jackets & Sweaters:

Bottoms:

Shoes:

Bags:

I’ve been on my “pack light” carry-on queen era so all of this (plus make up, skincare, and various other things) was able to fit into a standard carry-on and a personal bag. I’m pretty proud of myself not going to lie hehe. I hope this first City List helps you figure out what to do, what to see, and what to pack when you’re visiting Austin, Texas! Excited to create more of these soon.

Share Tweet Share Share Email

Read next