Where To Eat & Drink At SXSW... And Why

The South by Southwest (SXSW) Conferences & Festivals are going on now through March 17, and this yearly event draws a lot of people from outside Austin TX.  In between the various planned activities, the attendees want to drink in (literally in some cases) the local sights, scenes, sounds and senses.  And we'd like to help.

We have gathered up all the stories we have collected from around the web that talk about food & drink related places in the Austin area, and put them on one map.  Click on each dot to see what place it is, and who was talking about it.

The full list of the stories are below the map - Enjoy!:



The stories we've collected relating to Austin are:

Veggie Tales: Austin's best spots for plant-based dining - The Austin Chronicle
You Gotta Try This, SXSW: Vegetarian favorites - Austin360.com
You Gotta Try This, SXSW: Lunch, dinner downtown - Austin360.com
You Gotta Try This, SXSW: Lunch, dinner outside the downtown core - Austin360.com
Top Austin Restaurants for SXSW, According to TripIt Users - TripIt Blog
Find time for a long, tall taste of Austin during SXSW madness - Austin American-Statesman
Austin, Texas: Where to Eat and Drink - Bon Appetit Magazine
10 places to see in 2013 - Los Angeles Times
101 Best Restaurants in America for 2013 - The Daily Meal
The Best Burgers in 25 Cities - Zagat
The Most Important Restaurants in America - Bon Appetit Magazine
'Where Chefs Eat': Insiders Guide to the World's Best Dining Delights - PRI's The World
America’s Best Bagels - The Daily Meal
A trio of Austin art galleries - San Antonio Express-News
After Crispy Pig Ears, 10 Trends for 2013 - The New York Times
America’s 12 Best Donut Shops - The Daily Meal
The Best Burritos in America - The Daily Meal
What to eat in Austin right now - New York Post
Best French Fries in the U.S. - Travel + Leisure
America's Coolest New Diners - Travel + Leisure
Top sandwich shops: Travelers pick their favorites - USATODAY.com
10 of America's best historic restaurants - CNN.com
The 25 Best Ice Cream Shops in the U.S. - Complex
Best Ice Cream Spots in the U.S. - Food & Wine Magazine
World Beer Cup 2012 Winners - USA & CAN
100 Restaurants with the Best Service in the U.S. - OpenTable
The Ten Best New Restaurants in America: Restaurants + Bars: - GQ Magazine
Best Restaurants 2011 - Esquire
The Best New Restaurants in America, 2011 - Bon Appetit Magazine
2011 Top 100 Chinese Restaurants Competition - Top 100 Overall Excellence (USA)
2009 Top 100 Chinese Restaurants Competition - Top 100 Overall Excellence (USA)
Food Wars - Travel Channel
America's Best Donuts - Travel + Leisure
National Carousel Association
Sweet Tooth - Food Network
Bar-B-Que - Food Network

Our Reading List & Everything Map

Announcing two new features on our blog:

• Our Reading List - the stories and places we collect in between our big articles
• Everything Map - our map of, well, everything we have blogged about, and all the places from Our Reading List (over 5,000 as of today)

If you are someone that likes to find unique places to visit, these two new features should quickly become a favorite.

Enjoy!

Top Small Hotels And Motels For Families

With around 50,000 hotels, motels and other lodging to choose from in the U.S., where are the best places to stay with your family?

Luckily TripAdvisor, which bills itself as the world's largest travel site, likes to pull together "best of" lists based on reviews from people that actually visit the places they rate.  For families, TripAdvisor just announced their list of the:
"Top 25 Small Hotels & Motels for Families in the United States"

Where can you find the most winners in the one area?  Five of the 25 are within 9 miles of each other - can you find them?  Hint:  You're going to have to really zoom the map to find them.

Things To Do: New Orleans

Mardi Gras in New Orleans ends on Tuesday - so what else is there to do?  Lots.

Food is definitely a big reason to roam around city, and there is plenty of history to view too.  We have mapped three lists to help you decide what to do, and where to go:

• New York Times - 36 Hours - New Orleans
• Msnbc.com - 15 things you didn't know about New Orleans
• Food Network - Diners, Drive-ins & Dives

You don't have to wait for Mardi Gras to visit New Orleans, and considering how much there is to do, it's going to take more than one trip to see it all.
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Sunset - 50 Romantic, Beach and Hideaway Places To Stay At

Sunset Magazine, which shares the best of life in the West, has three recent articles that cover unique and interesting places to stay for relaxing, or just getting away from it all.

• Top 10 hideaways by the sea
• 20 best beach getaways
• The West's best romantic getaways

Zoom the map to see the places in Hawaii and Mexico.

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Hotels For Business, Pleasure And Weird

Our map today is a combination of five different "best of" lists from Travel + Leisure and Budget Travel.

Two Travel + Leisure lists cover "World's Best Business Hotels 2010", and "Worlds Top 25 Hotels", so that takes care of the high-end places to stay.  For Budget Travel, we have mapped "Worlds Best New Boutique Hotels Under $150", "World's Weirdest Hotels 3.0" and World's Weirdest Hotels (2008), which takes care of the moderate and, uh, different places to stay.

Move and zoom the map to find the places you'd like to stay at, or maybe just drive by and enjoy.

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Bargain Guide For Visiting Santa Barbara

If you're looking for a California break from all the winter weather, the Los Angeles Times has an article called "Santa Barbara Bargain Guide" that offers up a great list of things to do and places to go in Santa Barbara, which is 100 miles up the coast from LA.

In the guide, they give you a wide range of unique places to stay,  eat, and lots things to do, so you don't even have to do any travel planning.

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The map below gives you a better view of the Santa Barbara Urban Wine Trail.  Not included is the Summerland Winery, which is east of the downtown area.

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