October of last year I surprised Travis with a trip to the Formula 1 race in Austin Texas for his 30th birthday! He’s absolutely obsessed with racing and has had “go to a Formula 1 race” on his bucket list since he’s made a list. So I think I did good with this birthday gift (gives self a pat on the back). Read about where he guessed we were going, and watch the video of me surprising him of where we were actually going in this post here.
This post will be all about where we stayed in Austin, how we got around, and what we did in Austin with our one day we didn’t spend at the race track. The next posts will be all about the food we ate in Austin, how much we spent on the entire trip (and the things we can do differently next time to save more money because this wasn’t a cheap trip), our trip video, and how to make the most out of your time at an F1 race!
WHERE WE STAYED IN AUSTIN
We stayed at the Hyatt House on the North side of Austin. I reserved our hotel back in April (we took our trip in October later in the year) and this was the most reasonably priced accommodation I could find. If the price tag was a little more reasonable, I would’ve rather stayed in downtown since that’s where we ended up everyday anyway. But, the Hyatt House hotel was decent. There was a free continental breakfast each morning that we took advantage of two of the mornings, and the Hyatt House hotels come with a kitchenette that are pretty convenient. We always buy water and snacks when we know we are going to stay more than a couple of days and having the kitchen in our room made it easy to store these things. Hyatt staff are always friendly and very helpful, and we always end up enjoying our time at Hyatt hotels even if it was a less than ideal price tag.
STAY: HYATT HOUSE
HOW WE GOT AROUND AUSTIN
Austin isn’t friendly on the public transportation like the past couple cities we’ve been to (see Boston and New York). Our hotel was a good 30 minutes from the airport and about 20 minutes from the shuttle stop to get to the race track, and Uber and cab rides would’ve added up real quick, so we decided to rent a car. We took the official shuttles from downtown Austin to the race track Friday through Sunday. What I didn’t realize was that our shuttle passes didn’t get us free parking in the parking structure next to the stop, so we had to pay an additional $10 a day to park our car on top of the shuttle fees. It might’ve been cheaper to park at the track, but I haven’t done the math yet.
WHAT WE DID IN AUSTIN
Formula 1 United States Grand Prix
The main reason for our trip to Austin was to go to the Formula 1 race at the Circuit of Americas (if I haven’t already said that 10 times over). Friday was a practice day, Saturday was practice and qualifying, and Sunday was the main event. We had general admission tickets so we walked around the track and watched the different practice sessions from a few different areas but ended up in turn 1 for the main event.
The track also had a full schedule of events for fans and we took advantage of a few of them. We waited for the Ferrari drivers autographs and ended up with Sebastian Vettel’s autograph on our Ferrari hat. Trav tried to wait for Fernando Alonso’s autograph but didn’t get so lucky. On Saturday we watched interviews with a few of the drivers at one of the stages, and then we went to the Justin Timberlake concert Saturday night (obviously). Lastly, we took advantage of the track walk after the main event on Sunday.
VISIT: CIRCUIT OF AMERICAS
Rode Bikes Around
Austin has a bike share program (B-Cycle if you’re interested); there are multiple bike racks across the city where you can rent (and return) bikes to ride. We did this in Nashville and Columbus and loved it so much that we knew we had to do the same in Austin. It’s a fun and easy way to see the city. We stayed around the South Congress area for the afternoon, but there are bike racks all over the city.
Mural Tour
Austin has some pretty rad murals around downtown. So, before we headed to Austin, I mapped out a few of Austin’s fun murals for us to check out. We took advantage of our bike rentals and biked to each mural. If you choose to do this, beware of a lot of hills, and maybe wear something a little more suitable for bike riding than ripped jeans and converse shoes, like I did. HA!
VISIT: AUSTIN MURALS (Her blog has a lot of great Austin TX resources too!)
Sunset Bat Cruise
Apparently under the Congress bridge in Austin is the the largest urban bat colony in the world. This has something to do with the way the bridge is constructed and it being perfect for bats to hide from predators and lay their eggs. Around sunset during the late-summer/early-fall months at sunset the bats leave the bridge to go find food for their young. There are multiple cruises to choose from that will take you under the bridge to see the bats leaving their nests at night. Our “cruise” left before sunset and took us opposite of the bridge before we turned around and made our way to the bridge. Our tour guide told us a lot about Austin and threw in some comedy a long the way; so it made for a fun evening. Although we didn’t see the swarm of bats leaving like some of the pictures online, we were able to see and hear a lot of the bats.
PROTIP: Pick up a bottle of wine and cheese and crackers to enjoy on board!
VISIT BAT CRUISE: SUNSET BAT CRUISE
Be on the look out for my post about all the things we ate in Austin Texas, our travel budget breakdown, our travel video, and for our like minded racing fans – how to make the most out of your trip to a Formula 1 race!
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