Austin Travel Forum

Guys,

everywhere i look i see brilliant reviews for the super 8 motel at airport south. im heading with a few friends into town for sxsw in March and was considering booking it for the five nights. Is this a good idea, is it easy to get into town from here, or is there a better area to try and get a hotel? the rates here are excellent and if it only means a short taxi ride each day we were thinking about taking the plunge.
any help much appreciated!

Gavin.

If you're willing to take a taxi every day, then it wouldn't be a problem, but I hope you realize that that would be at least $50 round-trip.
It's a very new property, it looks really nice, and I like Super 8s. There's a Super 8 on I-35 right at 12th that I've stayed at before that was awesome, especially for its location, but it's probably very costly for those dates.

$50 ROUND TRIP!

i was led to believe it had good road access and was only about 4-5 miles from town. if that trip is going to cost $25 they can forget about it, would make much more sense to add this onto the room cost.

thanks for the advice.

It is 4-5 miles from Downtown, but it will run you about $20 one-way when you factor in the traffic waiting times (which there is a ton of during SxSW, thus only exacerbating the already terrible Austin traffic).
If you cross 71 there's a bus that picks up on Oltorf, and you can take that and transfer to another bus to go Downtown. That will cost $1 per person one-way, but who knows how long it will take or how far you'll have to walk. Buses also stop fairly early. Capitol Metro, in my experience, is a really good system though. Maybe you could take a bus in and take a taxi back out.
Do you already have passes and stuff for SxSW? I've always wanted to go, but it's gotten so elitist that everything is inaccessible for peons like me without "connections." I don't know...

Greetings from Austin. Yes, without a car the taxi fare could add up for that location. Like the other person suggested, you could take the bus one way to save you some cost. Since that hotel has a free airport shuttle, you could see if they can drop you off at the airport everyday and take the express airport flyer bus directly to downtown from the airport. This may be a bit time consuming, but it is an option. You can see the airport flyer schedule here: for downtown you would want to get off on congress and 7th. Then take the taxi back for about $20 or so

http://www.capmetro.org/riding/schedules.asp?f1=100

The other person is correct that the Super8 on 12th street will be much closer to the events for SXSW, but many of the hotels sell out early for SXSW so it is best to book as soon as possible.
Super 8 Austin/Dtwn/Capitol Area
1201 North I-35
I-35 and 12th Street
Austin, TX 78702 US
Phone: 512-472-8331

You may also want to try this hotel for rates/availability
Homestead Suites
507 S. First St.
Austin 78704
Tel: 5124761818
Toll-Free: 8887829473

SXSW is fun and there are also lots of free events that are cool, especially in the SOCO area.

Good luck. If you have any other questions, let me know and I will try to help.

Cheers

Thanks guys,

ill put all this in the computer and work out what the best way forward is.

we are just going to buy the sxsw tickets online, kinda pricey but its a once off so just going to splurge.

if there is anything alse ill let you know but thanks again for the help.

Gavin.

You can get a taxi fare estimator by going to this yellow cab austin link http://www.yellowcabaustin.com/fare_info.html to get an idea of the price of a taxi from the different hotels you might select.

The closest location to all the SXSW action will be downtown, but those will be the pricier hotels (but you won't need a car or taxi, you can walk), then other locations to consider are those near UT/University where you should be able to get a bus or dillo (www.capmetro.org) to downtown pretty easily or a cheaper taxi fare, then other locations to consider would be south IH-35 around Oltorf, which will be closer but you will need some sort of transportation.

You can also go to www.austin.craigslist.org to see if anyone might be renting their apartment out during that time

Have a great time!

thats a super tool, thanks for all the help!

We flew down from Dallas last year and had a really good experience. We stayed at the Extended Stay suites on 6th and Guadalupe. I'd really recommend staying downtown if you can. Cab fare will add up as the earlier posts indicated. If you stay downtown you can walk or take the bus.
To get from the airport, we had a car service waiting on us. www.alpharide.com
It was about $10 more than a cab, but they were there in the baggage claim even thought our flight was delayed and we scheduled a return trip when we left. Trying to get a cab during SXSW is not easy. Think about it - tens of thousands of extra people descend upon Austin that week.
Also, check airfare into/out of San Antonio just as a back-up if flights aren't available or are really expensive from your city.