Overall

Austin was a great city, and somewhere I could potentially see us settling down if we ever moved to the US. Because it's the first US city I've spent more than a few weeks in (outside of San Diego for 3 months back in 2010) I don't have a big frame of reference for how it stacks up versus other US cities. We visited for just over 2 months, from the end of January until the end of March.

The Drive-Everywhere Lifestyle

It took me a while to adapt to the car and road centric lifestyle which prevades US cities, and I still much prefer the walk-everywhere lifestyle you get in Europe. That said, if I was going to live this way, I'd guess this is as close to perfect as it could get. If you have a car, the whole city feels very accessible. We stayed 8 minutes east of downtown, along a single straight road, and any time we wanted to do anything or go anywhere, we didn't feel the need to plan ahead at all really. We could just hop in our car or an Uber, and get wherever we needed to go within 10 to 15 minutes, with basically zero traffic.

Our apartment complex was on the side of a motorway, so you couldn't just wander to the local convenience store or coffee shop, but the complex itself was incredibly well-equipped. It had 2 huge common rooms with TVs, a great gym, a beautiful pool, a mini putting green, and a full co-working space with call rooms and 15 or so private offices. When we wanted to head out, an Uber to the downtown area ran between $15 to $20 each way.

The Convenience was probably the thing I liked most about Austin. If you're not super budget constrained, you can live a remarkably convenient lifestyle here. Food, drink, transport etc. is available at the touch of a button, and the default apartment complexes are super well equipped to provide most things you would need to live and work.

The People

Most people I met who said they "lived" in Austin, had been there for just a couple of years. Most lifelong Austinites I spoke to were reasonably grumpy about the sharp increase in imports and corresponding increase in living costs.

Demographics: Austin definitely skews young (early to mid twenties), and a lot of the nightlife and events reflect that. My impression was that most people 30+ lived and hung out outside the center/downtown area, which makes sense given those places are more family friendly. As a new import, you're likely to find it much easier to make friends if you're in your twenties than in your thirties.

Startup People: I've become a little cynical on startup culture in general, so this can be taken with a grain of salt, but having attended a couple of meetups and been in Austin during SXSW, my impression was the startup community was quite nascent. There were a lot of bright-eyed, young entrepreneurs, but not too many who had built anything - or at least if there were, those ones didn't mix in the same circles. It definitely didn't feel like San Francisco, for example, where every second person you meet is a serial founder. So when people say "you should come here if you're in tech, it's full of startup people", I would take that with grain of salt.

Cost of Living

Accommodation

Again, - first time living in the US so my frame is limited, but Austin definitely felt expensive. Accommodation is 60% higher than the average US city. We didn't plan ahead particularly well and stayed in Airbnbs for the first 4 weeks, which was quite painful. There's a reasonable selection of short term rentals, but there are very few affordable short term rentals. I did hear that Facebook Marketplace is the best option, so will have to try that next time. We ended finding a place we liked on Airbnb and making an offer to the owner, and renting for about $3000/month.

Food

Eating out and ordering in tend to be quite pricy. On the flip side, most apartment rentals come with a decent-sized kitchen, and there's a Walmart (or HEB - the Texas Walmart) within a 10 minute drive of most places, so grocery shopping and eating in is comparatively super convenient and affordable.

Uber/Lyft

Coming from Dublin, the cost of an Uber/Lyft was a pleasant surprise. It may have been because we were only a 10 minute drive from Downtown, but I found it rare that we'd go somewhere that was over $20, and cost was rarely a consideration when deciding how to get somewhere.

I disliked that for most things you pay for, there's a massive gap between the price you see up front, and the price you pay. This was particularly prevalent on the sharing economy apps (Airbnb, Turo, Uber), and whenever we would eat out. For example, a single meal on Uber Eats could easily run to $25. I gather this isn't Austin specific though

Random Other Stuff

Alamo Drafthouse: Just a cinema with tables and table service really. Fun & worth a visit.

Volleyball: There are a ton of sand volleyball courts dotted around the place, which surprised me. I joined a pickup game through a friend I met - the quality was varied but the gameplay was fun. We played in the sun for 2 hours - a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Pickleball is super popular here. It's not great as a workout but I really enjoyed it. I played at Bouldin Acres, which is a big bar with courts outside. Again, a great way to spend an afternoon.

Austin FC: The local soccer team is only two years old but has a super nice new stadium, which is packed on game day (I - perhaps ignorantly - assumed that soccer wouldn't be very popular given the dominance of football, basketball and baseball). Tickets were relatively expensive but the atmosphere was great. Apparently the team had a rough start and were getting beaten badly in their first year, but have started to play much better this year. We went to two games, including their 5-1 win over Inter Miami.

Standup Comedy is everywhere. On any given weekday evening, you can do a last-minute Google and be at a comedy event in 30 minutes. To be honest, as much as we love standup, we realized it is possible to have *too much* stand-up comedy or at least that all shows are not created equal. There was more than one event we attended where 90% of the audience members were performing comics. The best shows we saw were at Vulcan Gas company Their Secret Thursday show, and Joe Rogan & friends were both great.