One of the things that made Austin a prime candidate to become the capital of Texas was its place along the Colorado River. This allowed lush greenery to bloom in an otherwise harsh and challenging environment, and the park up ahead showcases exactly that. Note: The tour is over 19+ miles long, with more than 20+ audio stories, and takes about 3-4 hours to complete. New, Lifetime access, no expiry. Use it anytime, on any trip, as many times as you want.
Coming up in a minute is the Pennybacker Bridge Overlook, offering excellent views of the Colorado River and what locals simply refer to as the “360 Bridge.”
This is Wild Basin Wilderness Preserve, home to over 200 acres of preserved wilderness and three miles of hiking trails. The preserve requires a small fee on weekends and holidays, but is free and totally open during weekdays.
Just ahead is the Zilker Botanical Garden, featuring 28 acres of local and exotic flora. Here you can see native succulents, prehistoric plants, and even a Japanese garden!
This three-acre, spring-fed pool is a favorite swimming spot among locals, but it’s also much more than that! Here, you’ll also find a miniature train for kids and a community theater that puts on free shows for the public.
See the big Paramount sign? That marks the historic Paramount Theatre, and it’s over 100 years old! This Austin landmark got its start in 1915, when architect John Eberson designed what was originally called The Majestic.
Here’s what happened: In 1842, Austin was technically the capital of Texas. But it was a frontier town, seemingly at risk of being seized by Mexico at any moment.
This was a fun and easy way to see Austin. We appreciated the historical & local insights, all from the comfort of our own car. Start later in the afternoon so you can see the bats at sunset!
I like it that i can have a tour at my own pace and time. The voiceover about historical places is also good. Clear and loud.
It works quite well but we had some difficult times reconnecting with where we were actually at. Especially downtown by the Capitol.
Convenient. Good info on downtown, but expected more on neighborhoods in the surrounding areas. We were happy to have it as an option since the hop on hop off wasn't available.
It wasn’t always clear where to turn -we kept turning on the wrong road or missing things. In fact it gave us an incorrect turn at one point…it told us to turn right at the light at the end of the bridge. We did so but then saw that we were supposed to have gone two blocks straight ahead and turned left! Toward the end there were so many things all at once that it couldn’t tell the whole story of each. It should have told us to pull over each time. We eventually just pulled over and listened to all of it. It was informational though and we did learn a lot. Just too many glitches that we were really frustrated.
This was a great experience. We could take our time to explore the different stops on the tour. The app is easy to work.
Evan , great guide and story teller. Learned a lot about history . Lots of fun, great recommendation for places to have lunch/donner
The Austin Tour info often would not play when it was supposed to, and tour was repeatedly interrupted by construction detours and it was impossible to see too many landmarks. A great concept but frustrating; they need updates with Austin construction and events. I took pictures of detours preventing touring.
I loved the self-guided aspect and reasonable price. While somewhat superficial, the information was worth hearing. Though I did not mind it, the amount of walking at the end was not clear up front. Also, the recommended parking garage downtown is also event parking, so you may end up paying $20 for 1 hour, more than you paid for the tour. On Saturday at noon, there was plenty of parking available on Congress Street, much closer to the route. Also, the pacing of the presentation was sometimes slow, causing me to miss some of the marked sites.
I really liked the idea of a self tour and there were many things I liked about this for our first and quick visit to Austin. We did get a overview of the city and it’s history so would recommend trying this “but”- - App was buggy and commentary would often stop mid word so I think we missed the last sentence(s) of most descriptions. - On Apple Play, there is only audio controls, no map. The map giving directions is only on the iPhone. Fortunately I had a phone holder with me so could make it visible while driving. - The map would “stay centered” sort of but the blue dot was always in the lower left corner and route ahead at an angle so hard to see what was ahead. (If I can, I’ll attach screenshot to review) Regarding itinerary: - Starting point on Mount Bonnell was perfect! We would have never known about that fabulous vista! Do not miss it and do walk to the top if you’re able to! - There seemed to be a disproportionate time spent at city parks (as wonderful as they are) and we missed some important places like the University of Texas campus and the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library. - It was not clear there was a walking segment. While that’s wonderful, my wife is recovering from knee surgery so we had to drive the last part which caused us to miss segments and cut others short. I’d suggest an all-driving option. So I’d try it again, suggest you try it but encourage some improvements especially to the app.
What a find! The app was Great way to get around Austin and see some sights on our own time. The turns were a bit lagging a second behind which made it challenging to turn in the right place a couple times. Also couldn’t get the map to show up on the car but it was on my phone. So not super convenient . Great historical info played. We learned a lot!. The places were very cool and well planned! I will use this app again on another vacation!
This was an interesting but brief overview of Austin. What we experienced was worth it, yet we had to continue on our own exploring the Longhorn Campus, including the LBJ Presidential Library, the walk by the river, Austin City Limits, etc.
Great tour experience and worked very well. Love the GPS integration to POI narratives (flexibility). Note to not drive too fast due to reception. Overall happy with the app and tour program!
The views were amazing! Learning about the facts & history of Austin was great too! Nice being able to do it your self & able to take the time to enjoy the views as to a group tour. Definitely recommend!
Excellent. Exactly what we needed for our family. Self paced leisurely drive while avoiding the crowds and heat. The voice over was very entertaining with lots of interesting facts. The instructions were easy to follow as well. I actually recommended this tour to our friend who is an Austin native. The only things that probably need improvement is the tour of Austin city. With all the one way streets it was hard getting back on the right path to hear the audio guide again. I lost it when the guide recommended parking the car and walking the remaining spots. Austin in July you don't want to walk it. We drove it so the audio guide would intro a spot but with the moving traffic it would abruptly stop and then intro the next place of interest. I understand it was the walking section but unfortunately didn't hear the full audio guide. Overall, it was a great guide fairly priced as well. Great job guys. If I am back in the US in a different city I will pay for the tour gladly. Cheers!
It was 100deg F the day we did the tour so a driving tour was great and flexible. Information was balanced. It was historical and amusing. We were not aware of the walking parts but we stayed in the car and listened to the spots on the walking tour.
Technically, everything worked well. It was a little confusing at first to know that we needed to go to site number two for the program to continue. I thought each step would provide a better description of the particular site background, history, etc. It jumps in with a history of Texas rather than any description of what we’re seeing. To be honest, I wasn’t a big fan of that. I would have loved to know more about specific site. That seems to start at Pennybacker bridge which was interesting but prior to that not really. I hope this is helpful for other newbies.
Nothing happened as described. Downloading was a challenge, so we asked for help or a refund. We were suggested to try it anyway to see if it did download. So we got in the car and went to the first starting point. We couldn’t get sound, or couldn’t get most attractions to come on. We jumped from 2-3 sequence spots frequently. We got lost near the beginning and started over, but little changed. Very frustrating! We were exhausted by the end due to the stress of the poorly performing tour, for both the driver and person running the program on our device. $16.99 wasted…and the gas in the car.
Great concept. Easy to use. Good overview of Austin. Could use more content on longer stretches. Would like to see upcoming turns displayed in similar fashion to Google maps along with speed limits. Looking forward to using the app on our future trips
We were looking for something flexible to introduce us to Austin. A guided tour in our own car, on our own time schedule was just the thing! The tour was both driving and walking. A map showed where we were and when we arrived at a navigation point a message played. The information was informative and brief, so we were never driving past a point of interest before the message was complete. We also could stop and take extra time anyplace we pleased. It was very clever!
Directions were easy to follow, but definitely need 2+ in the car: 1 to drive, 1 to navigate. The narration was clear and basic. We got a kick out of his corny comments and he sounds like Casey Kassem. A great value at $15 and wonderful way for locals to show their visitors around.
The navigation does not hook up with my vehicle navigation system . After much frustration we discovered you use your phone for navigation and the audio routes into the vehicles radio. One road circuit in Austin has changed direction(one way road) and a short series of the tour was wrong. Once you figure the program out it works rather well.
Excellent use of a morning . It was simple to use and blended well with CarPlay. Will definitely use again in other cities. I stopped at every mention of a special attraction which made the program last around 4.5 hours.
Was a good intro tour to some of the sights. We really Loved the Texas Capital Building and all of the history as we drove. Was good value.
This tour took us areas that we might not have seen otherwise, but the driving directions were not very good. Our biggest complaint is when “the guide” said to make a turn, he did not give enough notice (we missed a few turns since we were in the wrong lane to make a turn on short notice). There is some narration with interesting facts but it’s limited.
It was wonderful!! We learned a lot from the checkpoints that automatically started when we passed that point on the map. I had my 80-year-old grandmother and her friend in the car, so we wanted something where we didn't have to get out and walk around. Even though the final part of the tour is recommended to walk around downtown, we stayed in the car and just pulled over into a parking spot to listen and see the highlighted point of interest. Highly recommend!!
Complete waste of our time and resource$, app would not load in an area with ample connectivity and on a new android... portions of audio, parts of a sentence, would come on randomly.
The guide gives good driving directions. The I formation is interesting, but is stuff that can be found on Wikipedia. The downtown portion must be done while walking which was not advertised. We chose this “tour” because it was a rainy day. So had to skip what was probably the most interesting part of the “tour.” Admission to the botanical gardens is $8 per person. And the tour route cannot be accessed after leaving their parking lot without driving about half a mile to make a u-turn. The gardens probably would have been worth it had it not been pouring rain.
Loved the view at Mount Bonner and the rolling hills around Austin. Learned things I didn’t know about Austin.
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