Derrik Chinn, travel planner extraordinaire and owner of Tijuana tour company, Turista Libre
curated six Spring Break guides for Made to Last. He is our featured
guest blogger and is giving tips and tricks for all of the hottest
Spring Break destinations. This week we are featuring Austin, Texas..
Branded the live music
capital of the world, not to mention the state's only liveable city as far as
much of the rest of the non-Texan universe is concerned, Austin is a bubble of
unexpected counterculture, a seemingly non-stop freak show that spans its
architecture, bar games, renegade art community and general population. A
refuge for the beautifully bizarre, all that would be otherwise misunderstood
if it were elsewhere. Just as everything's bigger in Texas, everything's odder
in Austin. Behave accordingly, and keep your camera ready.
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| Austin, Texas |
SXSW. Thousands of indie artists
-- many of which you probably already know of and if not chances are you soon
will -- and some 15,000 of their skinny-jeaned friends and fans descend upon
Austin for the 26th annual South By Southwest Music and Media Fest, happening
March 9-18th. The band list never stops growing, with acts who weren't
necessarily officially playing impromptu shows in phone booths, at bus stops
and atop pickup flatbeds. With a roster like that, chances are likely the
talent wagon includes someone who went to high school with your big sister's
ex-boyfriend's mom's second cousin-in-law. sxsw.com.
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| Austin's Sixth Street during SXSW |
The bat bridge. Random
fact: Austin is home to the world's largest urban bat colony; 1.5 million
reside under the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge. The city's in no hurry
to give them the bum's rush; they apparently boost tourism by some $8 million
every year.
Junkytown. Rusting away in South
Austin is the Cathedral of Junk, a towering mass of randomness that Vince
Hanneman began building in his back yard in 1988. Twenty-four years later, it's
evolved into a three-floor junkyard palace, a Taj Mahal of garbage that's part
maze, part clubhouse, part "Hoarders" nightmare. Not to be missed are
the oven that's fashioned out of a shopping cart, the TV garden and the drum
set on the second floor. (4422 Lareina Dr.)
Never, Neverlandia. Once
upon a time it was a single-story 1917 bungalow. But now the three-story
A-frame now looks like an Alpine chalet spliced with the Lost Boys' tree house
hideout according to Gaudi, had he summered in Morocco, Vegas and Graceland.
Thanks to the addition of skylights, 16 solar panels and Flintstone-era yet
functional technology like an intercom system rigged out of plain, old PVC
piping, Casa Neverlandia consumes a third of the energy what a house of the
same size would, making it one of the world's greenest homes. (305 W. Milton, talbotworld.com.)
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| Designer/builder James Talbot in front of Casa Neverlandia |
Peter Pan Mini Golf. An
Austin staple since 1946, Peter Pan has two 18-hole courses littered with
fiberglass dinosaurs, turtles, whales and, of course, the Pan himself.
Weathered by time and often overcrowded, yes, but for the 21-and-up crowd the
BYOB policy makes up for any disgruntlement. As long as it's in a can, it's
cool. (peterpanminigolf.com.)
Tag team. A street artist's
Shangrila, the Graffiti Park consists of a staggered series of concrete walls
on what would otherwise look like an abandoned plot of land downtown.
Technically it's private property; additions and modifications to the graffiti
apparently go through the owner before any paint goes down, which technically
make it all legal. (Baylor and 11th Street.)
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| Graffiti Park |
Feeding the freaks.
Guero's for Tex-Mex. Polvos for just Mex. Jo's for coffee and baked goods.
Shady Grove for burgers. Hopdoddy Burgers or Hoboken Pie for Dublin Dr Pepper
(the world's oldest Dr Pepper bottler, located in Dublin, Texas, still makes
the stuff with cane sugar). Art'z Rib House or Green Mesquite for barbecue with
ambiance. And Salt Lick if you have a car and love barbecue enough to drive 20
minutes for it.
For wettin' whistles.
There's Pete's Dueling Piano Bar, whose name says it all about the singalong
showdowns in which the whole bar participates. There's Dive Bar, whose name is
intentionally ironic and whose beer roster stars a lot of locals like Austin Beerworks. There's Mugshots, loved for its photo booth and $4 Lonestar pitchers.
There's the granddaddy of Austin music venues The Continental Club and Johnny
Cash tribute bar The Mean Eyed Cat, both favorites of Playboy Magazine. And
there's Ginny's Little Longhorn Saloon, where on Sundays patrons crowd the bar
in hopes that a chicken atop a giant bingo card craps on their number.
Do-tell motels.
Crash at either the quirky Austin Motel or the swankier bungalow-style Hotel San Jose, both built in the late 1930s, both with pools and both downtown on
Congress