Flying to Austin for the Music Festival

Jay Honeck

Jay Honeck

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Jay Honeck
Looks like we might be flying down to Austin, TX tomorrow (Sunday) for the music festival. I'm planning on landing at the big airport, AUS -- unless someone's got a better idea?

Any tips on seeing Austin and the festival? Can anyone recommend a decent place to stay with 2 adults and 2 teenagers? Preferably something fairly near the airport. (Some of the hotels advertise free transportation into downtown -- I presume the festival is downtown...somewhere...right?)

I haven't been there since I was a little kid, back in the 1960s, so any tips are welcome!

Thanks!
 
The old Bergstrom AFB HQ building is now a hotel, you can stay there. Otherwise I have usually staye din the garden variety Ramadas and Marriot Courtyards. Do go to Chuy's for mexican food. How many Elvis themed mexican resturants are there? Plus it is good food.

For transport I have never once been to Austin without a car. Not sure how easy it would be to be there without one. It is one of those cities where wheels are important.
 
Consider Georgetown and driving on into Austin. Much more user-friendly GA place, lots of hotels and restaurants on the way. You can also fly into Lakeway and stay at the lodge, get a car to go to the festival. I would probably choose either option vs going to AUS, but not sure how my list of what's fun matches up to yours.

Jay Honeck said:
Looks like we might be flying down to Austin, TX tomorrow (Sunday) for the music festival. I'm planning on landing at the big airport, AUS -- unless someone's got a better idea?

Any tips on seeing Austin and the festival? Can anyone recommend a decent place to stay with 2 adults and 2 teenagers? Preferably something fairly near the airport. (Some of the hotels advertise free transportation into downtown -- I presume the festival is downtown...somewhere...right?)

I haven't been there since I was a little kid, back in the 1960s, so any tips are welcome!

Thanks!
Click to expand...
 
The problem is going to be finding a place to stay at this late date. During the festival, Austin and surrounding area hotels are almost always booked to capacity. Add the fact that we are in the middle of a legislative session and the circus of visitors that includes, and you may have a heck of a time finding anywhere to stay unless you made the reservations months ago. You'll have better luck in the outlying cities. Georgetown, San Marcos, New Braunfels etc.

I have a house full of visitors at the moment who discovered this the hard way. I was surprised to find hotels in Austin two weeks ago for some of my out of town employees though, so you might get lucky.

Edit: Forgot to add: The festival isn't at one location. It's spread out all over town, so it'll depend on what venues you want to see. Best bet is to look at the venues on www.sxsw.com. There is also a list of "official" hotels on the site, but it looks like all of them are listed as sold out.
 
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ausrere said:
The problem is going to be finding a place to stay at this late date. During the festival, Austin and surrounding area hotels are almost always booked to capacity. Add the fact that we are in the middle of a legislative session and the circus of visitors that includes, and you may have a heck of a time finding anywhere to stay unless you made the reservations months ago. You'll have better luck in the outlying cities. Georgetown, San Marcos, New Braunfels etc.

I have a house full of visitors at the moment who discovered this the hard way. I was surprised to find hotels in Austin two weeks ago for some of my out of town employees though, so you might get lucky.

Edit: Forgot to add: The festival isn't at one location. It's spread out all over town, so it'll depend on what venues you want to see. Best bet is to look at the venues on www.sxsw.com.
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Dang -- I was wondering about this. Not surprising, though -- it's like college football season here at our hotel. (Book now for next fall, or you'll never find an available room!)

Well, we're just going to take our chances. Flying VFR, we can't say for certain whether we'll actually make it that far tomorrow, and I'm not going to get hung with their cancellation policies...

I've slept in the FBO before...

:)
 
smigaldi said:
The old Bergstrom AFB HQ building is now a hotel, you can stay there. Otherwise I have usually staye din the garden variety Ramadas and Marriot Courtyards. Do go to Chuy's for mexican food. How many Elvis themed mexican resturants are there? Plus it is good food.

For transport I have never once been to Austin without a car. Not sure how easy it would be to be there without one. It is one of those cities where wheels are important.
Click to expand...

What do you know about that converted AFB hotel? According to Expedia, they've got availability...
 
Jay Honeck said:
What do you know about that converted AFB hotel? According to Expedia, they've got availability...
Click to expand...
I have spent one night there when it was a hotel and two weeks there when it was and AFB but then only during the day.

The hotel is typical of Hilton, clean, comfortable, safe, and little on the high side cost wise for what you get. The location is fine with easy access to roads to bring you into town. There has been a lot of construction out towards the airport so it is easy to find places to go and eat as eating in any hotel should be avoided.

When I stayed I got there at 11pm and needed to be up at 4am for an o-dark-thirty departure. I went straight from check in to bed. It was quiet enough for me to sleep.
 
FYI, Austin traffic is the pits. One set of kids moved there a couple years back, and every trip to see them (in the car) is a hassle. Especially N-S roads during rush hour. fuhgedaboutit.
 
The other comments (esp. Lisa's) are on the mark.

Last time I went, I was fortunate to get a room at the Courtyard at 290 and 35 a few days out (it may have helped that I'm a top-tier member in the Marriott frequent guest program.

San Marcos is within reason for travel to Austin - and there are some hotels near the airport. Likewise Georgetown.

Parking in-town for the main events can be tough, but is doable. You'll pay for it. There is no good alternative to a car.

The main events are downtown. And they run late.....

Plenty of stuff to see and do in Austin & environs aside from SxSW. Austin is one of my favorite cities in Texas..... but I've got friends a number of places in the state...
 
There's a music festival starting this week??? Gosh, that shows how much I've been paying to local affairs.

For the past few months, I've done nothing more than go between home and the airport which keeps me on the southside. Going to the capital last week about killed me when I saw the traffic. It was worse trying to get further north to a paper store. It's worse than a mini-Atlanta when it comes to traffic.

It's very nice to look down on all those cars as I fly over town on the way to Llano. :)
 
Call me wacky, but if you can secure a reservation at a conveniently-located hotel, I'd definitely fly into KAUS, which is as convenient as can be for a busy Class C field. GA lands on 17L/35R, and whichever of the FBOs you choose are less than a minute taxi from the runway. Both FBOs are friendly and helpful (I think Kenny has a "special relationship" with one of 'em, PM him), and in my experience, if you plan ahead and call ahead, either place will have your rental car ready for you, often on the ramp.

Downtown is about ten or fifteen minutes driving from Bergstrom, much less driving than if you went to Georgetown, or San Marcos.

Of course, if you cannot score a hotel conveniently located to the SxSW events you're planning on attending, then all bets are off.

Someone suggested Lakeway, which would be nuts if you were staying intown Austin, but if no hotel could be booked in town, you might just try for the Lakeway Resort, which is a very nice place indeed, has a free shuttle from/to the Lakeway airport, and they can arrange rental cars, etc. for you. Only caveat: the field is absolutely, positively NOT open at night, to the extent that people will actually drive out onto the runway to block you from departing if you try. Really. Good fuel prices, too.

It is deeply disappointing that a city of Austin's size, especially one growing at the rate Austin is growing, has only one airport. The decision to completely close Mueller (the old "KAUS"), instead of retaining it as a reduced-size GA reliever), was one of the all-time bad choice.
 
Make sure you pack some 'warm' clothes before you head down here. We are in San Antonio right now visiting my sister and brother-in-law. We were looking for some relief from the Iowa winter, but we've been in the 40-50* range and cloudy since we got here. :( Supposed to be back in the 80's tomorrow I think/hope.
 
SCCutler said:
It is deeply disappointing that a city of Austin's size, especially one growing at the rate Austin is growing, has only one airport. The decision to completely close Mueller (the old "KAUS"), instead of retaining it as a reduced-size GA reliever), was one of the all-time bad choice.
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A change is in the works as we speak. A new 6,025' runway is being built at Bird's Nest (6R4). The man who owns Houston Executive bought Bird's Nest and the City of Austin is contributing to the cause, realizing it needs a reliever airport.

Bird's Nest sits two miles west/northwest of Centex VOR and 13nm north of AUS. According to Airnav, it will be renamed Austin Executive.
 
KennyFlys said:
A change is in the works as we speak. A new 6,025' runway is being built at Bird's Nest (6R4). The man who owns Houston Executive bought Bird's Nest and the City of Austin is contributing to the cause, realizing it needs a reliever airport.

Bird's Nest sits two miles west/northwest of Centex VOR and 13nm north of AUS. According to Airnav, it will be renamed Austin Executive.
Click to expand...

...so, like I said,

SpikeInHisCapacityAsAWiseSage said:
It is deeply disappointing that a city of Austin's size, especially one growing at the rate Austin is growing, has only one airport. The decision to completely close Mueller (the old "KAUS"), instead of retaining it as a reduced-size GA reliever), was one of the all-time bad choices.
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Austin needed and needs a GA reliever which is not 45+ minutes away from... Austin.
 
wsuffa said:
San Marcos is within reason for travel to Austin - and there are some hotels near the airport. Likewise Georgetown.
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San Marcos is where we ended up! We left Iowa City at 8:45 this morning, after deciding that heading straight to Austin, Texas was not going to work, due to crap weather South of Kansas City.

So, we headed direct to Salinas, Kansas instead, bearing 240 from KIOW. We ran into a few sprinkles, but kept the really bad stuff off of our left wing all the way. We stopped for lunch (borrowed the FBO's fabulous 1989 Pontiac 6000 for a drive to a great place called Russell's for "Bob's hash browns" -- the greatest hashbrowns EVER, with sour cream, swiss cheese, sauteed onions, green peppers and mushrooms), gassed up, and -- after initially planning to head farther West to Lubbock, Texas -- we saw the weather had cleared and we headed direct to Austin (San Marcos) on a heading of 176 degrees.

The flight was looooong, with a headwind all the way. But, at 6:40 PM, 4.4 hours later (with nearly 3 hours of fuel still on board -- gotta love that 84 gallon fuel capacity!) we landed in San Marcos, recommended to us by a fellow named Michael off of this Pilots of America group. Incredibly, Michael was waiting for us -- he had been tracking our flight all the way on Flight Aware!

A very nice guy, he made sure we had a rental car and a hotel lined up before cutting us loose. He's a Mooney driver originally from (among other places) Madison, Wi -- so he knows he's in winter heaven down here... Thanks, Michael!

Now, I'm sitting in an Embassy Suites, having imbibed two LIITs, a huge piece of cheesecake (in lieu of dinner) and spent 30 minutes soaking in the hot tub with Mary and the kids. Tomorrow we head into Austin for the big music festival (we don't have a hotel for tomorrow night yet -- this place is sold out on Monday night! It's a convention kind of place...), so who knows where we'll end up.

After a day or two here, it'll be off to Galveston. Or South Padre Island. Dunno yet....

Gotta love GA!

:D
 
Jay Honeck said:
San Marcos is where we ended up! We left Iowa City at 8:45 this morning, after deciding that heading straight to Austin, Texas was not going to work, due to crap weather South of Kansas City.

So, we headed direct to Salinas, Kansas instead, bearing 240 from KIOW. We ran into a few sprinkles, but kept the really bad stuff off of our left wing all the way. We stopped for lunch (borrowed the FBO's fabulous 1989 Pontiac 6000 for a drive to a great place called Russell's for "Bob's hash browns" -- the greatest hashbrowns EVER, with sour cream, swiss cheese, sauteed onions, green peppers and mushrooms), gassed up, and -- after initially planning to head farther West to Lubbock, Texas -- we saw the weather had cleared and we headed direct to Austin (San Marcos) on a heading of 176 degrees.

The flight was looooong, with a headwind all the way. But, at 6:40 PM, 4.4 hours later (with nearly 3 hours of fuel still on board -- gotta love that 84 gallon fuel capacity!) we landed in San Marcos, recommended to us by a fellow named Michael off of this Pilots of America group. Incredibly, Michael was waiting for us -- he had been tracking our flight all the way on Flight Aware!

A very nice guy, he made sure we had a rental car and a hotel lined up before cutting us loose. He's a Mooney driver originally from (among other places) Madison, Wi -- so he knows he's in winter heaven down here... Thanks, Michael!

Now, I'm sitting in an Embassy Suites, having imbibed two LIITs, a huge piece of cheesecake (in lieu of dinner) and spent 30 minutes soaking in the hot tub with Mary and the kids. Tomorrow we head into Austin for the big music festival (we don't have a hotel for tomorrow night yet -- this place is sold out on Monday night! It's a convention kind of place...), so who knows where we'll end up.

After a day or two here, it'll be off to Galveston. Or South Padre Island. Dunno yet....

Gotta love GA!

:D
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Welcome to Texas! A couple of other attractions to make note of... not sure if your wife is a big shopper or not or if time will allow, but there are two huge outlet centers right there in San Marcos. Also, IIRC, there is a CAF wing based at San Marcos with a B-25, so you might want to see if you can check that out. South Padre might be the better direction to head today as opposed to Galveston - the Houston area is socked in with fog as I type this, though it's supposed to be partly cloudy later today. If you go to Galveston, check out the museum there at KGLS... they got hit really hard by hurricane Ike and are still in the recovery process. They could use the support.

Likewise, if you're going to be in the area for a few days, this next Saturday (3/21) is Wings & Wheels at the 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby, and we'd love it if you stopped by. If you're not going to be here that long, I'd like to invite you to stop by the museum sometime this week... we're closed today, but open Tues-Fri from 10:00a-5:00p. Please make sure you call ahead or upon landing 713-454-1940 so the people at the desk know to come collect you from the ramp. And of course, if you do make it to the Houston area, be sure to give me a call... I'll be glad to pick you up from the airport and grab dinner/drinks somewhere.

My number is eight-tree-two, two-tree-six, two-seven-one-zero. Happy flying!
 
Watch out for the attack of the "victor kilo's" in the pattern at San Marcos! :)
 
Are the VK's the turbomentors?
 
"Are the VK's the turbomentors?"


Nope. They're the primary--and some instrument and commercial--students from Austin who invade HYI with great regularity, endlessly flying T&Gs on Rwy 17. I don't know if they still do it, but they used to purchase fuel at HYI because it was too expensive at AUS. The "VK" designator stands for Virgil Kennedy, who owns the school/dealership.
 
Four-Six-Uniform speaketh with great accuracy...

Atlantic made a deal worth taking so all our fuel is handled there at home. I was at HYI this morning but most of the time I head over to Lockhart or another venue. HYI gets a bit too busy to accomplish much at times.
 
t0r0nad0 said:
Welcome to Texas! A couple of other attractions to make note of... not sure if your wife is a big shopper or not or if time will allow, but there are two huge outlet centers right there in San Marcos.
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Our hotel -- a brand, new Embassy Suites -- is within sight of those big outlet malls. We're steering clear of them!

Thanks for the offer. We're thinking of heading down to the Corpus Christi area today, once the fog lifts. It's supposed to be clear by noon. I hope we can still hit Galveston (and the museum) tomorrow...
 
Jay Honeck said:
Our hotel -- a brand, new Embassy Suites -- is within sight of those big outlet malls. We're steering clear of them!

Thanks for the offer. We're thinking of heading down to the Corpus Christi area today, once the fog lifts. It's supposed to be clear by noon. I hope we can still hit Galveston (and the museum) tomorrow...
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LOL... understood. I hope your travels go well and please do consider stopping at my museum at Hobby as well as the one at Galveston.
 
t0r0nad0 said:
LOL... understood. I hope your travels go well and please do consider stopping at my museum at Hobby as well as the one at Galveston.
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Thanks again!

We flew down to Mustang Beach (located here: http://www.cityofportaransas.org/airport.cfm ) earlier today, after the clouds burned off up in San Marcos. It was a beautiful flight down, and the beaches here on this barrier island are gorgeous. After a lunch of fresh shrimp and pina coladas, we spent the evening on the water, followed by some time in the hot tub, followed by...checking P of A...

:smile:

Tomorrow we'll let the kids spend another day on the beach, and on Friday it looks like we'll have to start heading home. We'll have to save Galveston for next time...
 
We followed you out of HYI and had an equally pleasant lunch at VCT.

I'm glad you had a good time in Austin. SxSW tends to be a zoo but can be a blast, and from what you indicate, you found the proper fireworks.

It was a pleasure meeting you, Mary and the kids. My wife and I hope to see you at Alexis Park this summer.

Michael
 
Grumman 46U said:
We followed you out of HYI and had an equally pleasant lunch at VCT.

I'm glad you had a good time in Austin. SxSW tends to be a zoo but can be a blast, and from what you indicate, you found the proper fireworks.

It was a pleasure meeting you, Mary and the kids. My wife and I hope to see you at Alexis Park this summer.

Michael
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Same here, Michael!

We just got back to the room after spending 9 hours on the gorgeous beach down here. We are...crispy...but happy!

Now, it's off to find some more fud. We had some awesome shrimp on the shore today for lunch...

:smile:

Tomorrow, we head for home. Looks like the weather will cooperate...
 
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