Cold springs, hill country, and a grotto whose roof fell in
Austin, Texas · 3 nights · Apr · May · Sep · Oct · up to 8
Austin is hot for most of the year and the city's answer to it is water: Barton Springs runs at sixty-eight degrees in every month and the city built a pool around it. The hill country west of town is limestone, cypress and small roads. Hamilton Pool is out that way — a grotto where the roof of an underground river collapsed, leaving a jade-green pool under a fifty-foot overhang. Entry is reserved in advance every day of the year, and whether you can swim depends on the bacteria count, which nobody controls.
The ending
A collapsed grotto with a green pool beneath it, a waterfall coming over the lip of the overhang, and maidenhair fern growing out of the wet rock all the way round the back.
That is Hamilton Pool Preserve. See how private it is and when it’s open.
Do
- Barton Springs Pool
- Texas Hill Country Winery Tour
- Lake Austin Pontoon Rental
- Sound Bath at Austin Salt Cave
Eat
- Josephine House
- Uchi
Stay
- South Congress Hotel
- Hotel Van Zandt
Can we just turn up?
No. Reservations are required every day, the booking window only opens so far ahead, and your slot has an end as well as a start. This is the hardest date to hold in the whole atlas.
What if the water is closed?
The preserve stays open and the grotto is still there — swimming is what gets suspended, not access. Build the moment around the rock rather than the swim and a closure costs you nothing.
The planner doesn’t build Austin, Texas yet — we can name the places here but not yet enough of them around it to fill 3 nights without repeating. Read this one, then build your own somewhere we can.