My guide to Austin, Texas | Squat the Planet

My guide to Austin, Texas

Matt Derrick

Retired Wanderer
Staff member
Joined
Aug 4, 2006
Messages
10,538
Reaction score
13,812
Location
Portland, OR
Website
youtube.com
57314


Austin Texas is another one of those cities I never thought I would have spent as much time in as I have, but overall I'm glad I did. It's a great town overall that's easy to find work in, making it a great place to save up money between travels. Unfortunately there's not a lot of punks or other travelers coming through, mostly because of the stigma that Texas carries with it for being a super-conservative state.

Otherwise, it's an extremely friendly city with bike paths just about everywhere and you're usually not more than a 15 minute bike ride from some kind of nature. Swimming areas are abound in this city and river tubing is a popular activity especially during the warmer months (March through November). Speaking of the weather, there's about 2-3 months of brisk cold weather in the winter, but otherwise it's 9-10 months of summer, ranging from pleasantly warm to painfully hot (around 110 or so) in the pit of August. Humidity is an issue here more so than most cities, but not nearly as bad as a New Orleans summer.

57313


Barton Springs (pictured above) is a really nice free swimming area (there is a paid area too, behind where this photo was taken) and as you can see it gets pretty crowded. There are plenty of other swimming areas like the ironically named secret beach (which you can now find on google maps).

Food & Shelter

Rent:

Unfortunately, Austin has become a bit of a victim of it's own success. In the past five years the population of the city has exploded, which in turn has made rent prices skyrocket. Just to give you an idea, I (@Matt Derrick) rented a bedroom in a 6 bedroom house in 2020 for $500 a month and that's the cheapest I could find. Everywhere else is going to run around 800+, and studio apartments are going to be around $1000/mo if you're able to actually find one.

Squatting:

So, if you find yourself coming through, I would personally suggest squatting the forest areas of the city, which is incredibly easy to do due to the abundance of nature areas. It's easy to find a spot that you can pitch a tent and bike into town each day. Combined with plenty of jobs (see below) you shouldn't have too hard of a time stacking some bills.

Squatting buildings here is possible, although choices have become limited due to increased demand for real estate and the growing population. I haven't met anyone yet that's been arrested for squatting, only forced to leave by local sheriffs.

Food Resources:

Someone else will have to fill in food banks and other related info, as I've always worked and didn't need these resources here. I'll do some research and edit this later with what I find.

Making Money

Despite the population explosion, there's still plenty of jobs in Austin, and searching Craigslist along with just walking around the city should provide you with enough leads to find work. I've found the ETC/Gigs section of Craigslist especially helpful for finding one-off paid gigs like putting flyers up around the city, or giving Dell computers my opinion on one of their keyboards for $150. There's also plenty of blood donation centers and if you're willing to donate sperm, there's even a place for that too (i'll list specifics soon).

Spanging and flying signs on medians and on ramps is allowed here, but good luck finding a spot that isn't occupied. Along with it's population, the amount of homeless people living in Austin has risen dramatically, to the point where tent cities and shanty towns are not an uncommon sight.

Busking is generally good on 6th street while all the tourists are out at night, and near Guadalupe & 21st street, near the college.

Events & Things to do:

Austin is host to a lot of events and festivals throughout the year, including South by Southwest (SXSW), Austin City Limits, Austin Earth Day, Eeyore's Birthday, a Kite Festival and many, many more.

The majority of bars seem to be centered on the 6th street drag, either on the west side of I-35 where the loud dance clubs and fancy restaurants are or the east side of the highway where the more divey bars are at (preferred) although even that area is suffering a lot from gentrification as a shitload of condos are being built on the east side that weren't there even 2-3 years before.

The Lost Well on the east side of Austin is highly recommended; it's a biker bar with a punk rock/doom metal vibe. The drinks are reasonable and they have amazing bands play there (I've seen weedeater and bongzilla there amongst others).

There's also a bike/walking path that goes around the majority of the river that divides north and south Austin that is worth checking out, it's probably about 10 miles to walk the whole thing, but it's very pretty. Along that route under the southern portion of the congress street bridge is where millions of bats have made their seasonal home. At dusk every night you can go there to see millions of bats fly out into the night to hunt for food, although the best time of season for seeing them is in September/October.

Monkeywrench books is the local anarchist infoshop and has been around at it's current location (on the north side of Austin) for quite a while. Nice folks and a good place to meet some like minded individuals.

Treasure City Thrift is the local anarchist-run thrift store on the east side of town on 7th street. Rock bottom prices and cool stuff can be found there so definitely check it out.

Places to Avoid:

'Crime' in Austin is a joke. There's no real crime here, and when people tell you to watch out in certain neighborhoods, it's because that's where most of the black people live, which is obviously pretty racist. Having moved to Austin from New Orleans, even the most 'dangerous' neighborhood in Austin is laughable by New Orleans standards, I mean, really, in terms of crime, this place is the fucking Shire from Lord of the Rings.

That said, you might want to avoid downtown during the day hours just because it's boring.

Police presence:

I haven't had many run-ins with the police here, but I haven't heard that many bad stories either, so I'm assuming you'd have to go pretty far out of your way to piss them off. Overall, they seem more concerned about real crime than harassing homeless people or travelers.

Transportation

Getting around the city:

This city is also extremely bike friendly, and most folks tend to be more aware of cyclists than your average city. If you're broke and need a bike, check out the Yellow Bike Project, where you can volunteer time to build a bike of your own for free, or just buy a bike you build outright (for a very fair price).

Public transit is quite good, and an all day pass is only $2.50. The 'all day' pass is actually good for 24 hours, so if you buy one at 15 to midnight you're still good until that time tomorrow.

Coming & Going:

Austin is home to the dirty dog (Greyhound), Megabus (recommended), and FlixBus (generally the cheapest option - just heads up, some of their services got to North Austin and DT Austin and some only go to N Austin). I've also seen one or two mexican bus lines, but I haven't had time to look into them.

Best place to hitchhike depends on your direction, but you're probably best off taking the city public transit as far as you can get outside the city and picking an on ramp that's appropriate to your destination.

Trains come through going north and south, and the most popular place to watch them has usually been the bridge near Slaughter and Manchaca, although a large homeless camp has cropped up there in recent years. I didn't have any problems when talking to them with a few friends though, seemed nice enough.
 

Matt Derrick

Retired Wanderer
Staff member
Joined
Aug 4, 2006
Messages
10,538
Reaction score
13,812
Location
Portland, OR
Website
youtube.com
This is a re-post of the guide I wrote for the now defunct Travel Guides section of StP. I didn't want to lose this after shutting down that section, so I'm posting it here.
 
  • Like
Reactions: isaiah

93SNJN93

New member
Joined
Aug 25, 2020
Messages
4
Reaction score
7
Location
NUEVO MEXICO
View attachment 57314

Austin Texas is another one of those cities I never thought I would have spent as much time in as I have, but overall I'm glad I did. It's a great town overall that's easy to find work in, making it a great place to save up money between travels. Unfortunately there's not a lot of punks or other travelers coming through, mostly because of the stigma that Texas carries with it for being a super-conservative state.

Otherwise, it's an extremely friendly city with bike paths just about everywhere and you're usually not more than a 15 minute bike ride from some kind of nature. Swimming areas are abound in this city and river tubing is a popular activity especially during the warmer months (March through November). Speaking of the weather, there's about 2-3 months of brisk cold weather in the winter, but otherwise it's 9-10 months of summer, ranging from pleasantly warm to painfully hot (around 110 or so) in the pit of August. Humidity is an issue here more so than most cities, but not nearly as bad as a New Orleans summer.

View attachment 57313

Barton Springs (pictured above) is a really nice free swimming area (there is a paid area too, behind where this photo was taken) and as you can see it gets pretty crowded. There are plenty of other swimming areas like the ironically named secret beach (which you can now find on google maps).

Food & Shelter

Rent:

Unfortunately, Austin has become a bit of a victim of it's own success. In the past five years the population of the city has exploded, which in turn has made rent prices skyrocket. Just to give you an idea, I (@Matt Derrick) rented a bedroom in a 6 bedroom house in 2020 for $500 a month and that's the cheapest I could find. Everywhere else is going to run around 800+, and studio apartments are going to be around $1000/mo if you're able to actually find one.

Squatting:

So, if you find yourself coming through, I would personally suggest squatting the forest areas of the city, which is incredibly easy to do due to the abundance of nature areas. It's easy to find a spot that you can pitch a tent and bike into town each day. Combined with plenty of jobs (see below) you shouldn't have too hard of a time stacking some bills.

Squatting buildings here is possible, although choices have become limited due to increased demand for real estate and the growing population. I haven't met anyone yet that's been arrested for squatting, only forced to leave by local sheriffs.

Food Resources:

Someone else will have to fill in food banks and other related info, as I've always worked and didn't need these resources here. I'll do some research and edit this later with what I find.

Making Money

Despite the population explosion, there's still plenty of jobs in Austin, and searching Craigslist along with just walking around the city should provide you with enough leads to find work. I've found the ETC/Gigs section of Craigslist especially helpful for finding one-off paid gigs like putting flyers up around the city, or giving Dell computers my opinion on one of their keyboards for $150. There's also plenty of blood donation centers and if you're willing to donate sperm, there's even a place for that too (i'll list specifics soon).

Spanging and flying signs on medians and on ramps is allowed here, but good luck finding a spot that isn't occupied. Along with it's population, the amount of homeless people living in Austin has risen dramatically, to the point where tent cities and shanty towns are not an uncommon sight.

Busking is generally good on 6th street while all the tourists are out at night, and near Guadalupe & 21st street, near the college.

Events & Things to do:

Austin is host to a lot of events and festivals throughout the year, including South by Southwest (SXSW), Austin City Limits, Austin Earth Day, Eeyore's Birthday, a Kite Festival and many, many more.

The majority of bars seem to be centered on the 6th street drag, either on the west side of I-35 where the loud dance clubs and fancy restaurants are or the east side of the highway where the more divey bars are at (preferred) although even that area is suffering a lot from gentrification as a shitload of condos are being built on the east side that weren't there even 2-3 years before.

The Lost Well on the east side of Austin is highly recommended; it's a biker bar with a punk rock/doom metal vibe. The drinks are reasonable and they have amazing bands play there (I've seen weedeater and bongzilla there amongst others).

There's also a bike/walking path that goes around the majority of the river that divides north and south Austin that is worth checking out, it's probably about 10 miles to walk the whole thing, but it's very pretty. Along that route under the southern portion of the congress street bridge is where millions of bats have made their seasonal home. At dusk every night you can go there to see millions of bats fly out into the night to hunt for food, although the best time of season for seeing them is in September/October.

Monkeywrench books is the local anarchist infoshop and has been around at it's current location (on the north side of Austin) for quite a while. Nice folks and a good place to meet some like minded individuals.

Treasure City Thrift is the local anarchist-run thrift store on the east side of town on 7th street. Rock bottom prices and cool stuff can be found there so definitely check it out.

Places to Avoid:

'Crime' in Austin is a joke. There's no real crime here, and when people tell you to watch out in certain neighborhoods, it's because that's where most of the black people live, which is obviously pretty racist. Having moved to Austin from New Orleans, even the most 'dangerous' neighborhood in Austin is laughable by New Orleans standards, I mean, really, in terms of crime, this place is the fucking Shire from Lord of the Rings.

That said, you might want to avoid downtown during the day hours just because it's boring.

Police presence:

I haven't had many run-ins with the police here, but I haven't heard that many bad stories either, so I'm assuming you'd have to go pretty far out of your way to piss them off. Overall, they seem more concerned about real crime than harassing homeless people or travelers.

Transportation

Getting around the city:

This city is also extremely bike friendly, and most folks tend to be more aware of cyclists than your average city. If you're broke and need a bike, check out the Yellow Bike Project, where you can volunteer time to build a bike of your own for free, or just buy a bike you build outright (for a very fair price).

Public transit is quite good, and an all day pass is only $2.50. The 'all day' pass is actually good for 24 hours, so if you buy one at 15 to midnight you're still good until that time tomorrow.

Coming & Going:

Austin is home to the dirty dog (Greyhound), Megabus (recommended), and FlixBus (generally the cheapest option - just heads up, some of their services got to North Austin and DT Austin and some only go to N Austin). I've also seen one or two mexican bus lines, but I haven't had time to look into them.

Best place to hitchhike depends on your direction, but you're probably best off taking the city public transit as far as you can get outside the city and picking an on ramp that's appropriate to your destination.

Trains come through going north and south, and the most popular place to watch them has usually been the bridge near Slaughter and Manchaca, although a large homeless camp has cropped up there in recent years. I didn't have any problems when talking to them with a few friends though, seemed nice enough.
93
Hello and thank you friend.. A practical directory from a sensible source..
 

Poptart

Member
Joined
Nov 20, 2019
Messages
14
Reaction score
36
Location
Texas
@Matt Derrick I'm falling victim to the opinion that out of towners are making the prices go up by moving to Texas with their huge money saturation from the jobs they used to have elsewhere. San Marcos was a pretty small town with $400-$500 studios and a clam skyline just 10 years ago, then all these kids suddenly started showing up to go to SWT for university and boom boom boom there's huge apartment buildings, the traffic got crazy, they tore up the roads, made the east side of 35 a slum and rent went way up all over the place. now someone has to pay about $700-$800 for a room mate situation, or $900-$1,200 for a private studio/1 bedroom. even the camp grounds and RV parks went from like $350 a month to $500... all the spots where you were able to camp out and hide before, turned into really clean/paved nature trails and bike paths going through the city. while the prices went up, all the traditional townie jobs and wages of the area stayed the same.

Even with ranchers and farmers, the property taxes for agricultural land sky-rocketed making people tank and sell off their land which gets turned into more suburban sprawl. pretty much all of Kyle/Buda has turned into an overnight suburbia.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Matt Derrick

Matt Derrick

Retired Wanderer
Staff member
Joined
Aug 4, 2006
Messages
10,538
Reaction score
13,812
Location
Portland, OR
Website
youtube.com
I know it's been a long time since I worked on this thread, but I figured this piece of information I found on Reddit today would be a useful addition. It's a list of local businesses to give your money to instead of Amazon. So if you happen to be in Austin and you're looking for local places to buy something from here's a great list.

 
  • Like
Reactions: JayD

coyote mogollon

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 6, 2017
Messages
53
Reaction score
70
Location
San Francisco
This is a re-post of the guide I wrote for the now defunct Travel Guides section of StP. I didn't want to lose this after shutting down that section, so I'm posting it here.
Good overall report. I lived and temp squatted a construction site there wayyyy back in late 80s. In those days the post punk scene was awesome and the town still had a small town vibe, pre tech boom. One Big prob I had camping near there was FIRE ANTS. Be fucking aware of those frikkn little monsters!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Matt Derrick

JayD

Member
Joined
Oct 6, 2020
Messages
9
Reaction score
5
Location
Tampa, FL
View attachment 57314

Austin Texas is another one of those cities I never thought I would have spent as much time in as I have, but overall I'm glad I did. It's a great town overall that's easy to find work in, making it a great place to save up money between travels. Unfortunately there's not a lot of punks or other travelers coming through, mostly because of the stigma that Texas carries with it for being a super-conservative state.

Otherwise, it's an extremely friendly city with bike paths just about everywhere and you're usually not more than a 15 minute bike ride from some kind of nature. Swimming areas are abound in this city and river tubing is a popular activity especially during the warmer months (March through November). Speaking of the weather, there's about 2-3 months of brisk cold weather in the winter, but otherwise it's 9-10 months of summer, ranging from pleasantly warm to painfully hot (around 110 or so) in the pit of August. Humidity is an issue here more so than most cities, but not nearly as bad as a New Orleans summer.

View attachment 57313

Barton Springs (pictured above) is a really nice free swimming area (there is a paid area too, behind where this photo was taken) and as you can see it gets pretty crowded. There are plenty of other swimming areas like the ironically named secret beach (which you can now find on google maps).

Food & Shelter

Rent:

Unfortunately, Austin has become a bit of a victim of it's own success. In the past five years the population of the city has exploded, which in turn has made rent prices skyrocket. Just to give you an idea, I (@Matt Derrick) rented a bedroom in a 6 bedroom house in 2020 for $500 a month and that's the cheapest I could find. Everywhere else is going to run around 800+, and studio apartments are going to be around $1000/mo if you're able to actually find one.

Squatting:

So, if you find yourself coming through, I would personally suggest squatting the forest areas of the city, which is incredibly easy to do due to the abundance of nature areas. It's easy to find a spot that you can pitch a tent and bike into town each day. Combined with plenty of jobs (see below) you shouldn't have too hard of a time stacking some bills.

Squatting buildings here is possible, although choices have become limited due to increased demand for real estate and the growing population. I haven't met anyone yet that's been arrested for squatting, only forced to leave by local sheriffs.

Food Resources:

Someone else will have to fill in food banks and other related info, as I've always worked and didn't need these resources here. I'll do some research and edit this later with what I find.

Making Money

Despite the population explosion, there's still plenty of jobs in Austin, and searching Craigslist along with just walking around the city should provide you with enough leads to find work. I've found the ETC/Gigs section of Craigslist especially helpful for finding one-off paid gigs like putting flyers up around the city, or giving Dell computers my opinion on one of their keyboards for $150. There's also plenty of blood donation centers and if you're willing to donate sperm, there's even a place for that too (i'll list specifics soon).

Spanging and flying signs on medians and on ramps is allowed here, but good luck finding a spot that isn't occupied. Along with it's population, the amount of homeless people living in Austin has risen dramatically, to the point where tent cities and shanty towns are not an uncommon sight.

Busking is generally good on 6th street while all the tourists are out at night, and near Guadalupe & 21st street, near the college.

Events & Things to do:

Austin is host to a lot of events and festivals throughout the year, including South by Southwest (SXSW), Austin City Limits, Austin Earth Day, Eeyore's Birthday, a Kite Festival and many, many more.

The majority of bars seem to be centered on the 6th street drag, either on the west side of I-35 where the loud dance clubs and fancy restaurants are or the east side of the highway where the more divey bars are at (preferred) although even that area is suffering a lot from gentrification as a shitload of condos are being built on the east side that weren't there even 2-3 years before.

The Lost Well on the east side of Austin is highly recommended; it's a biker bar with a punk rock/doom metal vibe. The drinks are reasonable and they have amazing bands play there (I've seen weedeater and bongzilla there amongst others).

There's also a bike/walking path that goes around the majority of the river that divides north and south Austin that is worth checking out, it's probably about 10 miles to walk the whole thing, but it's very pretty. Along that route under the southern portion of the congress street bridge is where millions of bats have made their seasonal home. At dusk every night you can go there to see millions of bats fly out into the night to hunt for food, although the best time of season for seeing them is in September/October.

Monkeywrench books is the local anarchist infoshop and has been around at it's current location (on the north side of Austin) for quite a while. Nice folks and a good place to meet some like minded individuals.

Treasure City Thrift is the local anarchist-run thrift store on the east side of town on 7th street. Rock bottom prices and cool stuff can be found there so definitely check it out.

Places to Avoid:

'Crime' in Austin is a joke. There's no real crime here, and when people tell you to watch out in certain neighborhoods, it's because that's where most of the black people live, which is obviously pretty racist. Having moved to Austin from New Orleans, even the most 'dangerous' neighborhood in Austin is laughable by New Orleans standards, I mean, really, in terms of crime, this place is the fucking Shire from Lord of the Rings.

That said, you might want to avoid downtown during the day hours just because it's boring.

Police presence:

I haven't had many run-ins with the police here, but I haven't heard that many bad stories either, so I'm assuming you'd have to go pretty far out of your way to piss them off. Overall, they seem more concerned about real crime than harassing homeless people or travelers.

Transportation

Getting around the city:

This city is also extremely bike friendly, and most folks tend to be more aware of cyclists than your average city. If you're broke and need a bike, check out the Yellow Bike Project, where you can volunteer time to build a bike of your own for free, or just buy a bike you build outright (for a very fair price).

Public transit is quite good, and an all day pass is only $2.50. The 'all day' pass is actually good for 24 hours, so if you buy one at 15 to midnight you're still good until that time tomorrow.

Coming & Going:

Austin is home to the dirty dog (Greyhound), Megabus (recommended), and FlixBus (generally the cheapest option - just heads up, some of their services got to North Austin and DT Austin and some only go to N Austin). I've also seen one or two mexican bus lines, but I haven't had time to look into them.

Best place to hitchhike depends on your direction, but you're probably best off taking the city public transit as far as you can get outside the city and picking an on ramp that's appropriate to your destination.

Trains come through going north and south, and the most popular place to watch them has usually been the bridge near Slaughter and Manchaca, although a large homeless camp has cropped up there in recent years. I didn't have any problems when talking to them with a few friends though, seemed nice enough.
Many thanks man. This will be very much needed for myself soon.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Matt Derrick

ElNayshon

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 2, 2015
Messages
84
Reaction score
19
Location
Bend Oregon
Some things have changed. They legalized camping for a bit and the homeless population sky rocketed. There's some good things about the city but the price of rent has gone up nearly 50% in one year thx to capitalism/federal government. Also I'd say calling Austin super bike friendly is a stretch.. also the public transportation sucks.
 

Matt Derrick

Retired Wanderer
Staff member
Joined
Aug 4, 2006
Messages
10,538
Reaction score
13,812
Location
Portland, OR
Website
youtube.com
Also I'd say calling Austin super bike friendly is a stretch.. also the public transportation sucks.
I'm not sure where you're getting those two opinions from. I still live here and this is still one of the most bikeable towns I've been to in the USA. There are literally bike lanes everywhere within a 15 mile radius of downtown.

I also think the bus system here is pretty good, and the price is reasonable. You can also get to just about anywhere you need to on the bus which is more than I can say for most cities.

Still, you're correct about the rents. They have gotten downright criminal over the past 5 years. A lot of it has to do with the influx of people moving here and the lack of available properties. If you're willing to camp though on the outskirts of town (away from the majority of homeless camps) it's still a pretty viable option, given how many gigs/jobs are still available here.
 

ElNayshon

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 2, 2015
Messages
84
Reaction score
19
Location
Bend Oregon
I just think it's misleading. If you are going to camp from the outskirts of town you run into limited bus routes and end up having to take multiple busses and its going to take hours to get to your Destination. You can bike sure but do it regularly and your going to have an accident guaranteed the drivers suck and the bike lanes are small/non existent in a lot of areas.

Also last year the home bums were literally shitting and pissing in the streets near riverside. Austin is turning into a mini Portland thanks to an incompetent local government.
 
Last edited:
  • Disagree
Reactions: Matt Derrick

Matt Derrick

Retired Wanderer
Staff member
Joined
Aug 4, 2006
Messages
10,538
Reaction score
13,812
Location
Portland, OR
Website
youtube.com
I just think it's misleading. If you are going to camp from the outskirts of town you run into limited bus routes and end up having to take multiple busses and its going to take hours to get to your Destination. You can bike sure but do it regularly and your going to have an accident guaranteed the drivers suck and the bike lanes are small/non existent in a lot of areas.

Also last year the home bums were literally shitting and pissing in the streets near riverside. Austin is turning into a mini Portland thanks to an incompetent local government.
I managed to bike in Austin for nearly a decade and not get killed. Also the buses go like 20 miles out. Even when I lived hella far it was two buses and maybe an hour at most.

No offense but you must be living in an area that is the exception to the rule. Everything you are describing has not been my experience to date and I've lived in a lot of places around Austin.
 

About us

  • Squat the Planet is the world's largest social network for misfit travelers. Join our community of do-it-yourself nomads and learn how to explore the world by any means necessary.

    More Info

Help us pay the bills!

Total amount
$0.00
Goal
$100.00

Latest Library Uploads