19 Best Hotels in Austin
Although mechanical cranes continually haul in new hotels brick by brick to keep up with the bursts of city activity, when you stay in Austin, no matter if it’s a gleaming glass high-rise or a whimsical bungalow, you get a sense of place. Travelers from buttoned-up business pros late to their next meeting to pet parents with at least two furs in tow to families with backpacks heading to Zilker Park, find suite-only boutiques with ginormous rooms and kitchenettes, super luxe and perfectly-placed downtown digs on Lady Bird Lake, or revitalized Jazz-era mansions with extremely curated local touches in each one-of-a-kind, slightly weird neighborhood. No matter if you’re stopping by for one of the city’s best-known festivals or visiting to capture the Capital for the first time, plan your trip with this list of the best hotels in Austin.
Read our complete Austin travel guide here.
Every hotel review on this list has been written by a Condé Nast Traveler journalist who knows the destination and has visited that property. When choosing hotels, our editors consider properties across price points that offer an authentic and insider experience of a destination, keeping design, location, service, and sustainability credentials top of mind. This gallery has been updated with new information since its original publish date.
All products and listings featured on Condé Nast Traveler are independently selected by our editors. If you purchase something through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
James Baigrie/Courtesy Miraval Austin Wellness Resort & SpahotelMiraval Austin Resort & Spa
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Readers' Choice Awards 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023Miraval is immediately understated and elegant; its arrival center is an airy space overlooking one of the property's two pools. Hyatt opened this property in 2019, which was previously occupied by one wellness resort or another since 2005. This is the first Miraval portfolio-wide. Hyatt transformed the resort with six new buildings, including additional guest houses; all 117 rooms have also been overhauled, and there is a new pool as well as tons of new activities and programs. Come for self-reflection and self-care. Miraval is an immersive wellness experience through and through. This isn't exactly a jumping-off point for exploring Austin—you get here and stay here—but if you wanted to take a day out of your urban adventures, this would be the place to do it.
- Courtesy Austin Properhotel
Austin Proper Hotel
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Hot List 2020 Readers' Choice Awards 2020, 2023A step through the hotel’s giant black doors and it’s obvious that Los Angeles-based designer Kelly Wearstler spent time getting to know the Texas landscape and the city of Austin. The lobby, a series of enclaves curated with patinaed club chairs, loveseats upholstered in the rusty reds, deep greens and golds of the surrounding hill country, and wrought iron light fixtures from the 1930s, nods to the Arts and Crafts bungalow homes the area is known for. Wearstler mixes patterns, colors, and materials with her characteristic zeal: a single sofa is a pastiche of ikat, floral, and stripes, while the reception has a black and white gingham ceiling, elevator walls are lined with cowhide, and patterned vintage rugs cover much of the cypress wood floors throughout the hotel. And yet the result, a sort of visual patchwork of influence and eras, tones and textures, is anything but haphazard. It takes an incredibly keen, confident eye to pull off such a maximalist look. And while the identity of Austin, the country’s fastest growing city, is somewhat in flux as it moves from the laid back indie darling it’s long been and the busy tech-centric town it’s becoming, the Proper—with its heart-of-downtown location, casual sidewalk café, high energy lobby bar, and the city’s best Mediterranean restaurant, Peacock—is a place where both sides of Austin feel welcome.
- Courtesy Four Seasons Austinhotel
Four Seasons Hotel Austin
$$$ | Readers' Choice Awards 2017With its front-row views of Lady Bird Lake, this luxe resort feels like a quiet enclave set back from the business of downtown. Spacious rooms and suites have a soft neutral palette with matte-metallic finishes—you can even request firm or plush pillow mattress toppers, and a number of body pillows of your choice—and glass-doored bathrooms are stocked with L'Occitane products. Even the gym overlooks the lake—you may find yourself motivated by the sight of chiseled Austinites kayaking.
- Courtesy Commodore Perry Estate, Auberge Resorts Collectionhotel
Commodore Perry Estate, Auberge Resorts Collection
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Gold List 2023 Hot List 2021 Readers' Choice Awards 2021, 2023This place has lived several intriguing lives, including Roaring Twenties party palace, and a Catholic school. But none has been more carefully textured and beautifully executed than its current one as Auberge Resorts Collection’s first city-based property. The drive in can feel as though you’ve entered a European retreat far from Central Austin’s Hyde Park neighborhood. Design titan Ken Fulk spent two years sourcing antiques from Texas’ famous antiques town, Round Top, and then placed his findings with care and intention throughout the 10,800-square-foot 1928 mansion and adjacent terra-cotta-roofed Inn. Texas heritage style in the Inn gives a firm handshake to Italianate and Spanish Revival in cushy whiskey-brown armchairs and rounded archways that are poignantly set against black and rust star-and-cross tiles and vintage rugs. Moving through the peacock-shaped wrought iron door into the restored mansion, your eyes dart from the original swirling staircase to the iron light fixture illuminating Deborah Phillips’ hand-painted fresco. Restored terra-cotta tiles in curry, celadon, and apricot step you into an early 20th-century Texan estate as Pierre Frey fox-patterned wallpaper coyly salutes the critter that meanders Waller Creek on the 10-acre property. A cool breeze carries scents from the Estate’s fruit trees onto the terrace. It’s easy to forget the surging tech-opolis of downtown is just 10 minutes away.
- Photo by Nick Simonitehotel
Austin Motel
$ | Hot List 2018Hip hotelier Liz Lambert redesigned this Austin icon into exactly the kind of stripped down spot all the cool kids love. Rooms have been updated but are original to the hotel (apparently they didn't need closets in the '30s), and the decor is funky and playful: red, tufted-vinyl platforms, custom Voutsa wallpaper in a pattern of lips, old-school push-button phones. On warm days, the massive kidney-shaped pool is filled with guests, almost all with a cocktail or Austin Motel koozie in-hand. Its proximity to bustling South Congress is ideal for some travelers, but know that this is a true motel (not hotel) experience.
- Courtesy Hotel Van Zandt/©Whit Preston 2015hotel
Hotel Van Zandt
$ | Readers' Choice Awards 2017, 2018, 2019Inspired by singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt, a country music legend, this hotel fits right into the Live Music Capital of the World. Musical touches are everywhere: chandeliers made from French horns; a lobby bar record player that pipes tunes into the elevators; artwork in the shape of flying birds made out of vinyl. Every room has an impressive view of either the city or Lady Bird Lake, and is done in a stylish palette of gray and dark blue. But while the furniture is run-of-the-mill Restoration Hardware, the artwork is bespoke: think framed replicas of vintage concert posters and a historic map of Austin as wallpaper. And you'll know you're in Austin with touches like bottles of Topo Chico in the rooms along with a boot jack for getting off the cowboy boots you bought at Allens.
- Courtesy The Driskillhotel
The Driskill
$ | Readers' Choice Awards 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022There is no more authentically Texan hotel than this 1880s-era grand dame near downtown Austin. Beyond its iconic limestone-and-brick facade, the Driskill is freshly modernized, with light, bright guest rooms, though the decor pays tribute to the hotel's place in Texas history; for example, the headboard of the iron bed features Texas stars and the letter "D," reminiscent of a cattle branding iron. (Mr. Driskill was a cattle baron.) With its cowhide bar stools, well-worn leather couches, and nightly jazz pianists, the hotel bar is dark and cozy. Locals are on a first-name basis with the bartenders who have been pouring cocktails there for more than 30 years. Check out the Civil War–era pistols that have been repurposed into lamps. And don't skip the bar snacks: truffle popcorn and meatballs in particular. The hotel is famous for its 1886 Chocolate Cake, named for the year the hotel was built. It costs $12 per slice, and is worth every penny.
- Chase Daniel/The Loren at Lady Bird Lakehotel
The Loren at Lady Bird Lake
$$$ | Hot List 2023This 108-room jewel box has, arguably, the best location in downtown Austin. It overlooks Lady Bird Lake and the city’s growing skyline; a hike and bike trail across the street connects guests to Austin’s top sights and famous quirks alike. Upon arrival, friendly valets meet guests—who, along with their rides, look hot off of the runway—and usher them into the hotel lobby through glass doors. Guests might then take in city views from their balcony, recharge in the award-winning Milk + Honey Spa, take a dip in the rooftop swimming pool, or hit the first floor cafe. It’s all about understated glamor—and a touch of Caribbean hospitality—at The Loren.
- Courtesy Lake Austin Spa Resorthotel
Lake Austin Spa Resort
$$$ | Readers' Choice Awards 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023Set on a picturesque hillside of its namesake lake, this all-inclusive destination spa attracts relaxation seekers from all over—you'll see them, buffed and polished from their treatments and eager for more, strolling the grounds all day in their robes. Beds are extremely soft, and the lavender-scented products in the bathrooms are from the resort's own line; in fact, they're the same ones used in your spa treatments. Speaking of, all the spa's products are grown on the grounds (wildflower and organic honey are used in the facial scrubs) and some treatments take place in semi-open settings. Luxury Lakeview rooms have a cottage feel with a covered back patio that looks out onto the water. Walls in some of the rooms are painted a soft blue or yellow and headboards are updated in soft neutral toned leather, while artwork and pillows mimic nature with wildflowers and wildlife.
- Chase Daniel/Thompson Austinhotel
Thompson Austin
$$ | Hot List 2022 Readers' Choice Awards 2023This new skyscraper is set to reenergize a sleepy corner of downtown Austin, thanks to two street-level restaurants by James Beard Award–winning chef Mashama Bailey; a design- and music-forward bar and pool on the fourth floor; and a two-hotels-in-one concept that attracts professionals and urban adventurers alike. It’s one of Hyatt’s early attempts to combine the Thompson and tommie (the little brother to the luxe brand). Floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the city skyline, and rooms also have Nespresso coffee makers and bars that are far from mini with Texas-sourced snacks and spirits. Turndown includes Earlybird CBD gummies and a Skin Authority eye kit—a welcome upgrade from the standard dark chocolate and weather report.
- Nick Simonite/Courtesy Hotel Magdalenahotel
Hotel Magdalena
$$ | Hot List 2021Spread across four open-air buildings on sprawling grounds, Hotel Magdalena is the latest from Austin’s homegrown hospitality firm Bunkhouse. The property occupies the former site of the Austin Opry House and is in a part of town long frequented by the city’s musicians, including Willie Nelson. The hotel pays homage to the neighborhood’s roots (rooms are decorated with works by local music photographer Scott Newton) while also drawing on Austin’s swimming hole culture. A 900-square-foot pool echoes the city’s popular Barton Springs, and tiered garden beds planted with cypress and sycamore evoke the Barton Creek Greenbelt. With their cool concrete floors, high ceilings ribbed with sustainable timber, and tiled bathrooms in glossy pop colors, the lake-house-like rooms are a respite from the heat. Conceived and executed largely by women, Magdalena is welcoming and intuitive, a fitting nod to its namesake, the patron saint of the ladies.
- Jody Hortonhotel
South Congress Hotel
$$ | Hot List 2016This compound-like hotel, set in a low-slung, white-brick building, takes up an entire block in Austin's hip South Congress neighborhood—and it draws all the artfully tattooed area creatives into its orbit. The spacious lobby is broken up into several semi-private seating areas, but the lively bar—outfitted with mid-century modern furnishings—is where you'll want to camp out from morning 'til night. Rooms are stylishly minimalist, with polished cement ceilings, hardwood floors, and deep turquoise-and-gray color palette—but it's the his-and-hers "love kit," along with the cool brass bottle opener you'll want to pocket. The hotel's amenities are so inviting that you could spend your entire stay inside this mini-compound. There's a well-edited women’s clothing boutique, Sunroom, and six restaurants and bars, including high-end omakase cocktail experience, Watertrade.
