Austin Detours

Steve was a great guide. Lots of good info and a good time. We was very up beat and a funastic sense of humor. I would suggest this tour to anyone.

Great tour. My boyfriend and I loved the historical and cultural aspects. Because it was a small group, we were able to ask questions and get personalized recommendations. Jason is a great tour guide and a wonderful ambassador to the city of Austin. Well worth the $$$

I was traveling alone and wanted to see the city. Steven was an AMAZING tour guide. I was able to see all the great things about Austin and some fun history. I would did this again in a heartbeat. It absolutely made my day!!! Thank you!

When deciding where to see live music in Austin I felt overwhelmed with the choices. This tour was GREAT! My husband, who is pretty hard to please, was very happy. (We are used to NOLA music festivals).

Austin Detours is great! We took the «Real Austin» tour with Steven. He took us around to some well-​known spots and to some hidden gems. Definitely worth checking out!

Bob & I took two tours with Austin Detours, The Real Austin Tour with Steven McFarlin in the afternoon and the Austin Live Music Crawl at night with Sunny Fairly.
Steven was a blast with a wealth of knowledge, tidbits and good humor. The best part was that we were able to visit and walk around a number of areas like the State Capital & Graffiti Park at Castle Hills while touring through local popular spots and neighborhoods with Steven stopping or pointing out interesting things that would make you want to come back on your own. We returned a couple of days later to wander South Congress Ave and ended up at Guero’s Taco Bar for a great experience and lunch. We also wandered around a wonderful bookstore called BookPeople on North Lamar Blvd. Our final stop on the tour was for frozen Mocha at the Holy Cacio food truck. We returned to Austin Detours with lots of new facts about Austin such as how the Mexican freetailed bats arrive to mate under the Congress Avenue Bridges from Apr through Oct consuming ¹⁄₃ their bodyweight in insects every night and managing to find their young out of a group of a million or so bats. Stephen & Austin Detours are just terrific. Book a tour next time you are in Austin.
The Austin Live Music Crawl with Sunny Fairly was also equally excellent. We started at The White Horse and it was just jumping with everyone dancing. Then AGBD with a different music vibe and finally, The Saxon Pub for the best band of the night. In fact most of the group stayed there after the tour was done. A friend of mine asked me for the names of any bands I liked during our stay so I emailed Sunny yesterday to get the names and he replied first thing this morning so that tells you something about Sunny and Austin Detours. Sunny is a musician/​songwriter and I think most of the Austin Detour group have musical backgrounds. You could see that Sunny truly enjoyed finding bands to add to the tour as well as enjoying the music during the tour himself. Of course he had to balance that with corralling our drinking bunch to get to the next venue. Great tour, lots of fun try it, you’ll enjoy yourself.

There are those who enjoy city tours at which they have to utter duck sounds on command. I am not one of them. I expect a city tour to give me a feel of a city I don’t know too well — a local’s insight into what the place is about. This is why I highly recommend Austin Detours. It is a tour in a more intimate setting (less people, smaller vehicle) but rich in facts and a lot of fun. Out guide, Steven, was knowledgeable and kept us entertained for the entire two hours. Amazingly, he was able to show us the many different faces of this beautiful city and communicate its spirit. And yes, there was one local in the group who seemed as pleased with the tour as we tourists were. Check it out when you’re there!

The driver could not have been friendlier or more informative. And he didn’t just drop us off and go hide in the bus. He came into each venue to make sure we were straight and settled in. I highly recommend this tour for any music lover. Only suggestion would be to make a bit longer and add a couple more venues.

for $ 35pp for a 2 hour tour, this is as good as it gets! If you are like me who is always trying to get the biggest bang for your buck, then choose the Austin Detour. The Real Austin tour covered most of the bucket list items, but we didn’t stop at the «I love you so much wall» to take pictures. However, they did give us a postcard of the mural at the end. Also, I like how personal the van is, the tour guide makes sure every one hops back on the van, treats us to something free at the food truck park (we got cake balls from Holy Cacao), stopped at the graffiti wall (hope gallery), visited & went inside the capitol, and showed us offside bars/​eateries/​brunch spots.
Steve was our tour guide and was very personable. He offered umbrellas & cold water along with his jokes.
Missing a star due to not visiting the «you’re my butter half» mural… which was on my bucket list. Heheh other than that, it was well worth it!

I’ve lived in Austin for five years and I’m hear to tell ya, you haven’t seen Austin till you’ve seen it with Jason at Austin Detours! From food trailer courts and the state capital, to back-​alley bars and guerrilla art galleries, you see it all, and all in such a comfortable and friendly environment, truly, I felt like I’d known Jason for years. A great guide for a great town, Jason and Austin Detours all the way!

I’ve lived in Austin for over 5 years now and had a truly amazing time on our tour! It was like seeing the city for the first time. Our guide, Jason, was super positive and fun, not to mention full of delicious jokes and interesting facts. I loved learning so many cool things about Austin that I didn’t know before.
I highly recommend Austin Detours whether it’s your first time here or another day waking up in the city you call home!

First trip to Austin and it couldn’t have started in a better way (maybe if I had hit the powerball). Found out our tour guide was also named Steve and was an NYC transplant. Seeing as I’m from Jersey his quick NYC wit and comedic nature (he’s literally a comedian) was certainly welcomed.
Steve whisked us around some of the major highlights of the city and it really is a great way to introduce yourself and acclimate to this truly eccentric place. From seeing the Capitol building to checking out their graffiti art park, the tour covered the major «trip advisor» type attractions while Steve added local tidbits (brunch at Bangers was awesome).
You travel in a smaller Mercedes passenger van so your not inundated with a larger crowd like on a duck tour (those guys are terrible at parking…). It’s a much more intimate setting and as such allows for plenty of questions to be asked. Do yourself a favor and snag a detour ticket if traveling to Austin and let them show you how Austin definitely is «weird», but in the best possible ways.

Just had a great tour by Alex and Steve. They gave us a fantastic taste of austin in every way. We learned something, we had fun and we even sampled the food. the two hours went by like two minutes. Can’t wait to return!!!

Had an awesome time in Austin with Steven showing us well-​known, and little-​known, spots. Steven is a great storyteller and we learned more cool things about Austin than I thought possible. Fantastic tour!

My friends and I took the «Real Austin» tour with Jason today and had a WONDERFUL time! Most of us actually live in Austin and he showed us some hidden gems we had never seen before and also gave us really great history and perspective on the landmarks we drive past every day. We were entertaining out of town guests and he made sure everyone had a great time. I would recommend the Austin Detours experience to anyone! Huge thanks to Jason and the whole team for making it such a wonderful experience!

I went on a great tour of downtown Austin with Jason today. I am visiting my sister-​in-​law, who lives here in Austin, and it seemed like a good way to get to know the city better. It was. He gave us a fun and funny overview of the city, plus a tour of the Capitol building. He was interesting and knowledgeable. It was a great trip — definitely recommend!

Had a blast with sunny. Great team outing event, so much fun to let loose. We made 4 stops, 3 eateries and one brewery. Highly recommended this company!

Took the «Live Music Crawl» Friday night. It was a great tour. We visited some great music venues and heard some amazing artists. Our tour guide Steven was very friendly and full of all types of facts about Austin and the music scene. I ran into Steven the next day at the Salt Lick and he came over to say hi and sat down and we chatted about music. He knew I liked live music and suggested a couple of matinée shows I might be interested in seeing. I would definitely recommend Austin Detours to anyone looking to have a fun and unique experience.
Thanks

Amazing and kind and helpful staff! Sonny was a great guide. I am so happy I started off my maiden voyage to Austin with a tour through Austin Detours. It was the perfect mix of the historic and unexpected. Definitely going on their live music tour next time!

I can’t say enough good things about our tour experience with Austin Detours. We just worked with them on a custom tour of Austin while there for a bachelorette party. Beth and Elizabeth were incredible to work with — providing all of the options available for us, suggesting what might work best and then being flexible when we needed to change things up last minute.
We were planning to do the Hill Country Wineries tour, but after a rough night out, Austin Detours and our amazing tour guide Jason helped us figure out a better tour option that didn’t revolve around wine :)
Jason was an excellent guide, showing us Austin in a way that only a true Austinite can. While we were touring, Jason also paused for pictures at every stop and helped us get the best group photos. We joked that the tour was worth it just for his photos! But his knowledge and love for Austin really shine through in his tour — he covered his favorite sites and gave us an insiders perspective on the city. Would absolutely book with Austin Detours again in a heartbeat!