The area
An hour from Austin, and a world away from it
Kingsland sits where the Llano meets the Colorado. Almost everything you need day to day is a few minutes away, and Austin is about an hour when you want it.
The map
Minutes from the house
The places we would send a friend to — not a list scraped off a map.
Eating and drinking
La Tequila Jalisco
Mexican. Good food and a good night out · 3–4 minutes
Karaoke on Friday nights
Mojo Coffee
Coffee · Minutes
Worth the trip out before everyone else is up
On the water
Wake Point LBJ
Boat rentals, food and live music on the lake · 4½ minutes by road · 10 minutes by water
The one-stop for getting on the water if you did not bring a boat — rentals, somewhere to eat, and music.
You can get there by boat — about two miles from the dock, ten minutes at an easy cruise. Wake Point and others like it on the lake sell gasoline on the water, so you can run over for fuel, lunch or the music and come back the same way — no trailer, no ramp fee.
Provisions and practicalities
H-E-B
Full grocery · Minutes
Stock up on the way in rather than after you have unpacked
Ace Hardware, Kingsland
Hardware, and a serious fishing department — reportedly the largest Ace in Texas · Minutes
Not the hardware store you are picturing. There is a huge fishing section — tackle, bait, licences — plus a lot of things you would never expect an Ace to stock. Worth an hour even if nothing is broken.
Dollar General
Ice, propane exchange, snacks and the things you forgot · About 3 minutes
Up RR 1431 past La Tequila — the one to send someone to when the cooler needs ice or the grill runs dry mid-cookout.
Worth a morning
Scenic overlook
A lookout over the lake, facing west — so it is the sunset one · 3 minutes · 1.2 miles
Off Scenic Loop, a couple of minutes from the door
Longhorn Caverns
Cave tour, and cracking open geodes to see the crystals inside · About 11 minutes
Ages eight to eighty, which is a rare thing to be able to say about an outing. Children remember splitting a rock open and finding it full of crystals; everyone else gets the cave.
Worth the drive
Golf
Five courses within five to twenty-five minutes — The Legends, Packsaddle, Hidden Falls, Delaware Springs and Horseshoe Bay.
Tennis
Two covered courts five minutes away at the Roddick Tennis Foundation.
Caves and parks
Longhorn Cavern State Park eleven minutes. Inks Lake and Burnet a little further.
Day trips
Marble Falls 10 minutes · Llano 25 · Hill Country wineries · Fredericksburg for a full day out.
Airports
Austin-Bergstrom about an hour. San Antonio about eighty minutes.
Fishing
Good in the cove itself, and it draws people from well beyond Kingsland.