I went to Austin in February 2018 for an amazing Bachelorette party weekend. I didn’t do any of the planning, but I got to enjoy the hard work of the two maids of honor. Of course I wanted to share all the details with you! My favorite part of this trip is that we got to see a little bit of all the different neighborhoods in Austin, not just the bars on “Dirty Sixth” so hopefully I can help y’all pick where you’d want to go!
Lindsay (the bride-to-be!) didn’t know that President’s Day weekend was her bachelorette party weekend. She thought that we were going to her vacation house that she rents out in Havasu in April, and that she was going snowboarding with one of her best friends this weekend. Sarah got to Lindsay’s house about an hour before they had to leave and was all “Hahaha nope” about her suitcase and re-packed her, without saying where she’d be going or that it was her bachelorette party! Sarah bought the tickets and was able to get Lindsay all the way to the gate before she found out she was going to Austin. Then they went out to dinner and most everyone else was there to surprise her that it was her bachelorette weekend! I flew in from a work trip in Central Florida, so I didn’t get to join everyone until after dinner drinks in our swank hotel lobby.
Speaking of the hotel – we found the best deal was through Marriott and not an Airbnb, so we got two rooms at the JW Marriott for 8 ladies. We absolutely could not have picked a better location, geography-wise. It was perfectly walkable or a short uber to everything we needed to go to. I visited the executive lounge and it was really nice. Pool/gym/spa facilities were all top-notch. The shower and toiletries in the rooms were AMAZING. The aesthetic and decor was really great. I also really enjoyed having drinks at the Corner Restaurant. My two points of feedback are (1) They didn’t have an elite area for check-in. I had to wait in line with all the “normal” people… can you imagine? 😉 (2) We had a late check-out so we could store our bags in one of the rooms, specifically to keep a store of breast-milk on ice. While we were getting brunch, the room with the late check-out was cleaned and the breast milk was pitched. Many of you will know that’s a HUGE deal, and the front desk staff was super apologetic and was able to do a little something to make up for it. We really appreciated the customer service.
Our first morning we had a quick walk up the street to Voodo Donuts. I’ve always wanted to go to a Voodo, but have never been able to check them out! The donuts were good, I mostly appreciated the fun themes and flavors. Totally bachelorette party appropriate, I got a donut that very closely resembled chocolate male genitalia. Imagine my surprise when I bit into the tip and found it was cream-filled! The shop was super cute and totally Instagram worthy!
Lunch was a nice thirty minute walk across the lake (which looks like a river, and might BE part of the Colorado river, according to Google Maps) to a taco spot called Gueros. Nice enough, but maybe the least memorable place of the trip. The best part is the neighborhood along South Congress we walked through – it had the “i love you so much” mural and a bunch of cute shops we stopped in to.
From there we were picked up by Sunny from Austin Detours for a music tour of Austin! The bachelorette is a music teacher, so this was not only great for her interests, but we really got a good feel for many different neighborhoods in Austin. Sunny was super nice and knowledgeable and he really showed us a good time. Some of the highlights of our trip were the Scholz Garden (really neat beer garden – oldest continuously owned & operated family business west of the Mississippi) The Driskill, which is a gorgeous old hotel with a lot of history, neat architecture and a cool bar, and Threadgill’s with a lot of history and a neat mural. Walking back from the music tour, we stopped in to HandleBar, which was so great we went back another time. Great craft beers and good old fashioneds.
For dinner we got our first taste of the awesome Rainey Street area with Emmer & Rye. We called this “White Girl Dim Sum” – they brought a cart of tapas-sized dishes by, but with non-Chinese options. Great farm-to-table food, we had a tasting menu set up to make it easy with the group, and everything was AMAZING. Would definitely recommend. Afterwards we hit up The Container Bar, because it looked really neat. More of a dance clubby type atmosphere – a little more grown up than “Dirty Sixth” but still made me feel old. Unbarlievable was really neat – a fun-house themed bar with a slide inside!
We did have a fail for the night – we wanted some COUNTRY dancing in Texas, so we went to The Broken Spoke, which is known as the spot for this. I’m sure it would have been the most amazing place to come with our gentlemen for some couples dancing, but for girls on their own wanting to do a line dance without our partners in tow, it wasn’t the right spot.
Saturday we had one of the neatest brunch experiences I’ve had in awhile – which says a lot because BRUNCH IS MY JAM. We checked out Banger’s, and it was so cool, I bought T-shirts for myself and my boyfriend! They specialize in exotic sausages and the food and sides were all super amazing. The bachelorette had a float with stout beer and vanilla ice cream. They have a “manmosa” which is a giant glass German stein with a whole bottle of champagne and a touch of OJ “for color.” Most of us stuck to the amazing beer selection and got sample flights. Loved the outdoor patio picnic feel!
Saturday was also Pub Craw Bicycle Tour day, which was a really fun thing to do with a group for a bachelorette party. I really liked the West 6th neighborhood we went through. They don’t have a bathroom at the Barcycle place, which I get – because drunk people suck, but it also really sucks to not have a bathroom. You can bring drinks on the cycle with you, but they aren’t provided. I would recommend all the spots we stopped at – The Tiniest Bar in Texas, Kung Fu Saloon, Rustic Tap (with garbage-can sized beer pong!), and Mean Eyed Cat with it’s Johnny Cash theme. I definitely would say that West 6th was my neighborhood that I’d want to hit up again. And they had the cutest Austin mural there too!
After a nap, we had Gus’ World Famous Fried Chicken delivered to the room (so good we should have ordered more!) before making our way to Dirty Sixth for the night. The bachelorette likes dueling pianos, so we checked out Pete’s. A fun entertaining activity for the night with good drink specials. We didn’t hop around on 6th after, but man that place is crazy! They shut down all auto traffic on the street at night on the weekends, so there is just a constant flow of drunk people. We saw some fights, drunk girls sitting on the pavement taking their shoes off, it had everything. I can’t imagine how crazy it would get for ACL or a Texas home football weekend. You might think you’re too old for it to be your scene, but it’s at least worth checking out for a bit!
Sunday was actually the Austin marathon, so everything was super crazy! We had reservations for brunch at the AMAZING Swift’s Attic. You should go to there. They had mimosas that were $1 for a single and $2 for a double! So I got a little day drunk. We walked around afterwards, saw the Capital, and then went to the super cool graffiti park at Castle Hills – but a warning, that site is going to be demolished and it’s going to be relocated. This was an Instagrammer’s heaven – definitely worth a stroll through!
For dinner, we decided we needed more Texas BBQ, so we checked out Cooper’s (nom!) and then hung out at the pool at the JW – complete with giant Texas outline on the bottom.
Monday was our final day of recovery and getting out of town. We had brunch at a crepe place near the hotel and headed to the airport. Such a fun trip! Where are your favorite spots in Austin???
Sweet D Travels 
[…] assuming you can drink in a moving vehicle in Tennessee?) They also had barcycles (we did one in Austin!) which are really fun, but maybe seemed like too much work in that heat and […]
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