Moving To Austin | My Utilities

Moving to new cities can be brutal on the soul, starting over, relearning how to make friends, finding joy in new places, knowing where to go in your free time, and the list goes on. My Utilities put together a quick list of places we encourage you to visit when you move to Austin to start making this city, your home.
One of the things we find most helpful when moving is making a map of the city. Zoom out from the chaos of the city to get a grasp of where everything is in relation to each other.

Eating and Drinking

Sixth Street

Ok let’s start with one of the most iconic areas of Austin. Most likely if you just moved to Austin you have already visited 6th street. It is about a mile-long stretch of wall to wall restaurants, bars, and live music. If you are ever feeling lonely after your move, head over to sixth street for a lively stroll and a bite to eat.

Rainey Street and Commerce Street

These are also walkable strips with restaurants, bars, and shops that offer great experiences.
According to Tripadvisor, these 5 bars are worth a visit:
Pete’s Dueling Piano Bar
The Broken Spoke
The Elephant Room
Craft Pride
Antone’s
According to Tripadvisor, these 5 restaurants are worth a visit: Eddie V’s Prime Seafood
La Barbecue
Uchi Sushi
Franklin Barbecue
Home Slice Pizza

Music Scene

Live Music is the heartbeat of Austin. Everywhere you turn there is raw talent and beautiful sounds. In almost every bar you walk by there is live music for you to enjoy. You can listen at big popular venues like Emo’s, Stubb’s, and Mohawk or you can walk down 6th street or Rainey street and discover new sounds any day of the week.

Great Outdoors

Get Outside Rivaling the music scene, arguably the best part of living in Austin is how easy it is to both enjoy and escape the city. Austin has countless ways to enjoy the city but surprisingly offers just as many ways to enjoy the outdoors, Lance Armstrong settled there for crying out loud!
Zilker Park: After you’ve walked through 6th street you might need a moment of fresh air. Zilker Park is a 351-acre park in the middle of Austin. Special events are always welcoming people to the field with live music, food trucks, hiking, biking, and jogging. At the base of the park you can cool off at the Barton Springs Pool on kayaks, paddleboards, or spelunking through the caves.
The Lady Bird Lake Trail is 10 miles of a gravel path that borders a portion of the Colorado River. It is ranked #2 on TripAdvisor for things to do in Austin so you know it’s good.
The Walnut Creek Metropolitan Park is just 20 minutes north of downtown with lots of tree cover and plenty of jumps. These trails were designed to be linked together to create unique workouts. Singletracks.com encourages riders when you get creative one ride can reach over 2400ft of elevation gain. Across the creek there are more challenging sections.
The San Marcos River is another unbeatable escape from the city about an hour outside of Austin. The river is always a fun place to escape and during the summer months you can float down in tubes and, “ pass the refreshments, a cool, cool beverage ”.

This website has great information all around Austin. http://bicycleaustin.info/getaround/routes.html

Luckily for you, Austin is an active city, however, you like to spend your time, eating out, discovering music, attending festivals, or joining races there are always friendly people to meet and activities to join in on. Make sure you stay up to date with events like Keep Austin Weird 5K, Austin Fine Arts Festival, Austin Marathon, Zilker Kite Festival, Austin Film Festival, Trail of Lights, Hot Sauce Festivals and countless more.