Texas: Austin and the Wide Open

I was in Texas twice in the 2010s — Austin in 2016 and again briefly in 2017. Texas resists the one-city approach: it's the second largest state in the country, with landscapes ranging from the East Texas Pineywoods to the Chihuahuan Desert at Big Bend to the Gulf Coast marshes. But Austin is where most visits start, partly because it's the most accessible and partly because it earns its reputation.

Austin's claim to fame — "Live Music Capital of the World" — is both a marketing slogan and an empirical reality. The number of live music venues per capita is extraordinary. On 6th Street on a Thursday night, you can walk a few blocks and hear a dozen bands in a dozen genres, all of them playing to small crowds in bars that look like they haven't been renovated since the 1970s (some of them haven't). The Red River Cultural District has more serious venues for local artists. The South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in March turns the city into something else entirely — but even in an ordinary week, Austin's music scene is the real thing.

The Barbecue

Texas barbecue culture has its own internal geography and theology. Central Texas style — the style Austin is in — is beef-centric, smoke-forward, and held to its own specific orthodoxy: brisket above all, cooked low and slow for twelve to sixteen hours over post oak wood, served on butcher paper with white bread, pickles, and onion. Franklin Barbecue on East 11th Street is the famous temple (lines beginning before dawn; worth it); La Barbecue and Micklethwait Craft Meats are the less famous alternatives (also worth it, shorter line).

The Hill Country and Beyond

The Texas Hill Country west of Austin — limestone bluffs, spring-fed rivers, peach orchards, the town of Fredericksburg with its German immigrant heritage and wine country — is the counterpoint to the city's energy. The Guadalupe River tubing scene (floating the river in an inner tube, the Texas tradition) is either charming or chaotic depending on your tolerance for crowds and coolers of beer. The Pedernales Falls State Park has a quieter version of the same landscape without the tubes.