Road Trip Austin Texas Hill Country & San Antonio



Road Trip Austin Texas Hill Country & San Antonio

Road Trip Austin Texas Hill Country and San Antonio

All distances and times are indicative and do not include stops.

Total mileage; 230 miles round trip Austin to San Antonio and back via Johnson City and Fredericksburg

Total drive time; 4 hours for the above route

How long do I need? You could do this in a week but I would take 10 days if I could to allow a decent amount of time to explore both cities and the hill country. If you want to tag on a trip to Houston add on another 3-4 days.

This is a brilliant trip that gives a great view of several very different aspects to Texas.  I would start in Austin to take in the lively cultural scene, especially great for music fans. Drive through the Texas Hill Country with its magnificent landscapes, great outdoor sport and interesting historical centres such as Lyndon B. Johnson’s Texas White House in Johnson City and the German frontier town of Fredericksburg. San Antonio offers a wonderful combination of history, culture and fun in the form of the River Walk, a mixture of family friendly restaurants, small shops, bars, nightclubs providing hedonism for a huge range of visitors. If you enjoyed watching Davy Crockett you have to go to San Antonio, if only to visit the Alamo……

If you want yet another view of Texas you can incorporate a trip to the gleaming skyscrapers and sprawling magnitude of Houston. This would be a great addition for space enthusiasts as you can visit the home of NASA at the Houston Space Center. If you also want to tack on a trip to the beach you can head to Galveston for a few days too.

Houston is 165 miles and about a 2 hour 30 minute drive from Austin. Galveston is around 50 miles and an hours drive south of Houston.

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Getting there

 

To find the best deals on your flights and accommodation, we recommend 1Plus2Travel. They are a great search website and search all the online consolidators so you don’t have to!

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Otherwise, Expedia and Skyscanner have a great range of options with other carriers connecting through US hubs.

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We recommend Holiday Autos or Easycar for car hire. Check out our car hire info for ways to save money. You may want to cover your excess and increase your liability cover with a policy like that from Worldwide Insure or Insurance4carhire.com.

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Where to Stay…

 

For hotels in Austin, see our pick of the top 5 hotels.

In Fredericksburg, we like Inn On Barons Creek. It is jut off the main street but within easy walking distance of the shops and restaurants. The rooms are spacious and have separate sitting areas and fridges. There is an outdoor pool and a fitness centre. The gardens along the creek are a lovely place to sit. Otherwise, we like the Hampton Inn & Suites Fredericksburg. This hotel is really well situated, right on Main Street and is ideal for families with an outdoor pool complete with water slide and complimentary Wi-Fi. If you are after something a little different, check out Barons CreekSide. This is a lovely resort, still within walking distance of town that has a choice of accommodation in the lodge, one of the log cabins, chalets or houses. It is a perfect place to get away from it all and still have easy access to the shops and restaurants of Fredericksburg. There is no pool, but a shallow creek runs through the property and the gardens are lovely.

In San Antonio, we have stayed at the Hotel Contessa , wich is great. The rooms are vast with separate sitting areas and very comfy beds. The rooftop pool is fantastic, the spa and fitness centre up there is very good too. We like the free Wi-Fi and it is in a great location, right on the Riverwalk and an easy walk to the Alamo and downtown San Antonio. Friends of ours have stayed in the Mokara Hotel & Spa and absolutely loved it. If you are looking for a splurge it is a great choice, with hot and cold running everything, great service and large rooms featuring four poster beds. Our friends are really into spas and said the spa was fantastic. If you want somewhere a bit smaller, our final choice is Eva’s Escape at the Gardenia Inn. This is a small B&B, a little further away from the heart of things than the hotels we have listed but still walkable if you don’t mind a half hour walk. The B&B is lovely with individually decorated rooms, complete with complementary Wi-Fi. There is also a very nice complementary buffet breakfast every day and a great porch on which you can sit and watch the world go by.