Keep Austin Weird!

For me, Austin is one of the best cities in the United States, my last time in the city, I said to myself I would come back. Yes, Austin is  a mix between cowboys and country, but the city and its citiziens have an aternative and liberal behaviour! Austin has something special, has a perfect mix and I recomend y’all visiting it !!

Austin is the capital of Texas, one of the southern states from the United States of America and also one of the biggest ones (after Alaska), also called the Lone Star State…

Families, kids, professors, students, immigrants, politicians, musicians, state employees, high-tech workers, a large gay community and hippies are living in this city and all of them are sharing the mentality of the slogan «Keep Austin Weird«, this slogan refers to the eclectic and liberal lifestyle of many Austin residents but is also the slogan for a campaign to preserve smaller local businesses to keep them safe against the big corporations.

My favourite place is the SoCo,  an amazing district stretching down South Congress Avenue from Downtown. This area is the home to coffee shops, eccentric and old stores, restaurants and festivals.  First Thrusdays (every month) are the best days to go and enjoy life music on the streets.

Austin City Limits is also an amazing opportunity to enjoy the music in one of the biggest music festivals in the US, ACL Festival brings together more than 130 acts from all over the world to play rock, indie, country, folk, electronic and more on eight different stages. Thousands of people attend the festival each day.

There are so many things to visit and do in Austin, dartying near or 4th street, visiting the capitol, walking along the river… so many things to do and now SXSW festival is held over there (South By Southwest Music & Media Conference) (another recomendation you guys should attend if you can). As Lonely Planet is on everything, they offer Austin city guide for free as they did during the mobile web congress in Barcelona or the free city guide promotion,

So, don’t forget to download here the city guide to enjoy one of the best cities of the USA 😉 you will enjoy tips from Lonely Planet authors, offline maps, and everything you need to navigate Austin and find your way to a good time (for example a nice big breakfast after you had a bit too much of a good time the night before).

Enjoy it and hurry up! it’s available until March 15th!!!

City guides with your smartphone for free

Before going to travel to a city, you have different options to get the information for a better exploration of the new place you are. That options are infinitive, depending on your relationship with locals (a lot of people have a lot of contacts everywhere in the world, or use sites like couchsurfing or hospitality club), or forums online, libraries,  bookstores for a Lonely Planet (my favourite guide) …so many places to get that information for really cheap and just  to take the best for their days in the new city.

But today, there’s another option also for free for having the information on your mobile device!

If you have a smartphone and want to travel to the major cities in the United States and Canada, this is the perfect time to download for free the 13 Lonely Planet city guides! The apps are available for free until tomorrow, February 4th (they are usually 5,99 USD) and they include: Hundreds of places to explore and points of interest of real interest, the maps work offline and all the information is in detail of the following cities:

• Lonely Planet Boston City Guide
• Lonely Planet Chicago City Guide
• Lonely Planet Las Vegas City Guide
• Lonely Planet Los Angeles City Guide
• Lonely Planet Miami City Guide
• Lonely Planet Montreal City Guide
• Lonely Planet New Orleans City Guide
• Lonely Planet New York City City Guide
• Lonely Planet San Francisco City Guide
• Lonely Planet Seattle City Guide
• Lonely Planet Toronto City Guide
• Lonely Planet Vancouver City Guide
• Lonely Planet Washington D.C. City Guide

Also available the Beaches of Fort Myers and Sanibel

Yes, as you can see, they are only available for iPhone, iPad, and iPod, and I’m an android user 😦 !!

Tip: they are almost 20MG, so download from the Itunes or with a Wifi connection, the 3G connection can take forever!