Austin hotel/city ?

North Austin and up to Pflugerville has some really nice places. The West side of Austin is really nice, too, but that would make getting to&from the Expo center too difficult.

If you stay near the airport, you have an easy route to the event going up HWY 973. There are some nice hotels along IH-35, around the Hwy290 and Hwy 183 areas, but there are also some pretty low-quality places along there too (in my opinion.) So, you'd want to be wary of extremely cheap deals. There's no real reason to stay downtown, unless you are planning on experiencing the nightlife.

There are some brand new hotels at the I35&Parmer Lane area, which is further away from the airport and the Expo center, but its still probably a 20-min drive to the event. That's about as far north as you'd want to go.

Check the prices for the hotels in Manor, too. That would put you less than 10 minutes to the Expo center.

Good luck at the race, and I hope you have a great trip!

Edited by GregInAustin 2009-09-09 1:36 PM

If you want close to the race site, look around the airport. That will be your best bet. If you go with a national chain, you should be okay.

Stay away from downtown unless you want to be woken up at all hours of the night from drunks coming in off sixth street. I was just at the Radisson Sunday night for the Austin Tri, and had a horrible night sleep because of it. Not to mention the people in the room next to me having some loud sexual activity at 2 a.m. (his name was Michael, I heard her yell it quite a few times!). There must have been a crack at the top of the ceiling between our rooms, because I could also see their tv flickering. Mine was definitely NOT ON. Then the fire alarm went off at about 3 a.m. Then the hotel got on the loud speaker in every room to let you know that the coast was clear and that we could "resume our normal activities"! I thought, great, now my neighbors are going to go another round! The 5:00 wake up call was not pleasant.

I hadn't thought about that, but you are right for Saturday night in Austin is loud. 

I have been submitting some lowball offers for Downtown, Austin North, and Airport on priceline.  Now I am going to switch to just the Airport and Austin North.  Looks like most things are 5-10 miles from the site which doesnt make very much difference.

Dang it, the Longhorn group rate of $85 at the Hilton Airport is sold out....was there a few days ago...

Big D just to let you know I put in $50 for Austin North 3 star hotel and got the Radisson North.  From the map it is 10 min. from the expo.  Just a heads up, you may try 45, it didn't accept $40 from me.

See ya folks in October.

Great info!!! I have put in $50 for 4-star and got declined. Was scared to drop to 3 star thinking they are going to sneak in a few of those 2 star hotels in there. I bet as the event comes closer, the prices might drop a bit too, who knows, might not be worth the stress to wait.