Quick Solo Weekend in Austin, TX

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A mere 36 hours after arriving home from Charleston, SC, with my sweetheart, I hopped on a plane to represent my screenplay ‘tis the damn season, selected for Austin Under the Stars Film Festival. It would be my first film festival placement and attendance, and I didn’t know a single person there. So, I built an Austin, TX Google Map ahead of time and set out to explore everything I could on Saturday & Sunday.

Quick Solo Weekend in Austin - Favorite Recommendations

I took my first breakfast to-go following a friend’s excellent recommendation for Comadre Panaderia.

7/7, highly recommend.

I found my happy place at Barton Springs Pool.

I ended up spending three or four hours out of my weekend just swimming and basking at this place. There were plenty of people around, but that made it extra special. I can’t remember the last time I recreated amongst a crowd of strangers without feeling concerned for health/safety. The energy was so wonderful.

Or maybe this place just felt like the ideal beach: Crisp, clean water and no sand.

they will make you leave if you try to eat here, but come full and enjoy a crisp swim and a light breeze.

Finding my studio away from home gives me a healthy anchor during the inevitable chaos of travel.

I loved both classes I took at Practice Yoga Austin, which has a warm, traditional studio feel that reminded me of hometown favorites Renegade (Knoxville, TN) and The Body Electric (St. Pete, FL). They also had a self-serve cold brew & yerba cart by Up & Up in their entry room (which is always exactly what I want after a yoga class, to balance out all the plain water and deep breathing).

I always want to feel my best while traveling, so I enjoyed healthy bevs and fancy water all weekend from JuiceLand.

The truth is, I’ve been struggling with my health for so long that I just know I have to eat as healthy as possible while traveling so I can mitigate the fallout when I end up at places like Home Slice Pizza. If you come across Stoke cold pressed juice, they’re also fantastic.

But seriously, try the (local) Crazy Water (dark blue/black label first, the red label is “intense” minerals and it’s a weird mouth feel).

*that unicorn is the re-entry stamp for Barton Springs Pool.

Home Slice Pizza has two packed locations right across from each other for good reason.

The NY-style pizza is authentic and delicious. It’s served on the correct plate (ruffled-edge paper and slightly too small for the slice), and the bar gives a full view of pizza-making. The interior is dark in a moody New York shotgun-style parlor with only a front window to light the entry. The garlic knots are enormous (and fit in your purse for travel snacks, which I know from experience). The pizza doesn’t need to be ordered extra-hot because they know how to bake the pizza the first time, so the cheese is just the right texture.

I’m sorry, was I going on at length about a pizza parlor?

It’d be a rough day when I ended up at Home Slice, and I just sat at the bar for two hours, ate single slices of pizza at a time, then polished off a spectacular tiramisu on my own.

The pizza bar was also the place I first researched the term range anxiety. I rented an electric Fiat on Turo that — up front — seemed like a great deal and a good choice. Watching the distance range go down at bizarre, sometimes completely unintelligible rates while driving through an unfamiliar city with enough electric cars that many charging stations would be full nearly broke me.

 

A short jaunt out of town: Austin Under the Stars

There’s more from the film festival on the ab studios journal, but it was still a chance to make some friends and put myself out there as a filmmaker.

 

On Monday morning, I overslept my alarm by nearly an hour, missed my scheduled Uber, yet somehow made it to the airport in time for a hot breakfast.

Not sure if every terminal in Texas has a taco truck, but the Allegiant Airlines satellite serves up burrito-sized tacos on a covered patio overlooking the airstrip with a stunning view of the sunrise.

 

I’d like to know more about Austin next time I’m thinking of traveling there. I got caught up in doing city-things, shopping and sightseeing, and think I missed out on what really makes it special.

But for a quick weekend away? I ate well, made a few friends, kept myself well, and came home with a trophy. 🏆