Stuff to do with Kids in Austin

We had 3 of our travel Plan canceled between December 2013 and  Jan 2014 they were

1.   San Francisco 3 days due to bad weather in Dallas

2.   Abu Dhabi and Bangladesh Christmas break canceled due to bad political situation in Bangladesh

3.   Los Cabos, Mexico:  canceled and it was my fault, didn’t check with wife if she could get off during the MLK,  and she didn’t, I was very excited about because I booked stay at the brand new All Inclusive Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos

So we decided to go to Austin, Texas. We stayed at Hilton Austin Hotel, I had two weekend night certificate I received after I signed up for Citi Hilton Reserve Card, which was about to expire in a month.  We have been to Capital building before, so we decided not to visit it this time.

Day 1

Hill country Austin is an amazing place; there are lots of activities available for all ages. Most of our activities were around our two year old E. Like most kids E loves museum, train and playground. So we decided to go to Thinkery . This place is amazing if you have very young kids. The whole time E was constantly occupied. There are so many different types of activities available. Make sure to pack food, there is no cafeteria, only vending machine. But outside the Thinkery is a park and next to the park on the weekend you will see what looks like a small farmers market. You can buy organic produce; they sell Mexican, French and Indian food. The food is pricy but I like to support small individual business, and that is where we had lunch. That evening we walked in downtown checking out different kind of store and had dinner. We made sure we were back to the hotel before the 6^th street party people came out.

Day 2

After breakfast we checkout of the hotel and headed toward the Zilker Metropolitan Park. This park is big, how big 350 acres big. Our plan was to do the train ride. Most of the vendors including the train ride accept only Cash. They do have an ATM machine which charges fee; luckily I had my Charles Swab Checking  account with Free ATM worldwide. The train runs for approximately 30 min all and the kids love it. Also the train runs on schedule, so if you see a line at the ticket counter its most likely not for the one immediately about to depart, but the one next. E was tried by now, so we headed to South Congress Ave where all the Austin famous food trucks are. We had some Jamaican Food at Gemma Love food trailer. I had OX Tail and wife had Jerk Chicken, both were amazing but the OX was spicy too. Then we headed back home to Dallas. There are small European ethnic communities by I-35, and there is a Czech community, so we stopped at the famous Czech Shop  to buy some sweets and Jalapeno Beer bread.

Hotel Review

Hilton Austin Hotel is centrally located in downtown Austin. Most of the stuff was within walking distance. The lobby is huge, they have Macs for the hotel guest in the lobby, and rooms were nothing special. You can see the pictures below