My brother lived in Austin for a number of years. I asked him to share advice with my best friend for her trip to Austin during South by Southwest (SXSW), the large music/technology conference that is hosted annually downtown. I thought his advice was so good, I wanted to share it.

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First off, have fun! The city will be crazy busy so expect lines everywhere.  I also typically left the city for SXSW so I am not too familiar with it so some of what I say may be wrong.
*Important Note: Uber and Lyft are not in Austin.  They have ride-sharing apps, but I do not know anything about them.
 
Lady Bird Trail is very nice.  I used to run it every weekend and it was very enjoyable.  Zilker Park is the start of it and it just goes east for 5 miles.  Very enjoyable.  I’m not sure if Zilker has events going on for SXSW though.
Food
  • Tacos: Torchy’s Top notch tacos and local chain. Pretty close to where you are staying
  • Barbecue: Franklins is the most well known and will be extremely busy.  My personal favorite is La Barbecue.  These are lunch spots you have to show up early too for food.  The lines will be long but I highly recommend going.
  • Brunch: Taverna is my favorite.  $2 mimosas and really good Eggs Benedict
  • Others: Those the pretty much the two staples of Texas but if you want something else SoCo (South Congress) has a lot of really good places.  Hopdoddy is gourmet burgers and Home Slice has great pizza.  Gourdoughs also has amazing donuts and food.Food will be talked about in the Bar/Going Out Section too.
Bar/Going Out
  • With it being SXSW you can go anywhere to see a show but below are some of the main areas of Austin.
  • Dirty 6th: This is the place most people think about with Austin.  It has a large college crowd and a large older crowd.  Tons of bars will have bands here and will get pretty trashy pretty quick.  I do recommend going here at least for an hour.  My favorite bars are Midnight Cowboy (reservation required) and Firsehouse Lounge.  These are both speakeasies so they will be tough to find.
  • West 6th: This is more of a young professional crowd and fancier.  I really went out here so I don’t know a lot but I have had some good food here.  Not sure where though.
  • East 6th: This is on the other side of 35.  I haven’t been in this area a lot but this is more of a hipster area and like every where else will have live music.
  • Rainey: A lot of outside bars with a lot of live music.  Bangers and Craft Pride are my favorite stops.  Bangers is a German sausage house with good food and beer.  They do have a huge outside stage too.  Craft Pride is only local Texas beers and I am a big fan.  There is also a pizza food track called Via 313 with really good pizza.
  • South Congress: As mentioned above this place has a lot of good food and interesting shopping.  There are some bars but I haven’t been to them.
  • Domain/Rock Rose: This is the only place of interest not downtown.  It is an upscale shopping area like Easton and Rock Rose is a street with a bunch of bars.  It is brand new and this should be its first SXSW.  You will have a wealthy older crowd here  There is a train station stop (more below) pretty close to here if you want to venture this way.  Top Golf is also located in this area.
Transportation
In my opinion transportation in Austin is terrible and SXSW just makes it 10x worse.  With staying by 2nd and Congress you shouldn’t really have to deal with it too much but here are some things to note. Leaving the city the train could have long lines.  I had to wait over an hour to get on the last one one year and not everyone was able to get on.  If you are planning on using it plan accordingly.  Taxis are terrible.  I wouldn’t bother.