nearby-the-water locations around Austin? (Georgetown, San Diego: apartment complexes, rentals, houseboats)

[ILikeSmartHippies]

For half a dozen reasons I am on my way to relocating in the Austin area soon. Looks like a great place to hang for a while, a good mix of techies & hippies & well educated people & live music nightlife. I'm looking for some neighborhood recommendations. What I've been looking at so far has been around Lake Travis, so I could easily kayak & sail in my free time.

Should I be focused around lake travis for being <10 mins to the water? Have you guys found the commute between living near Lake Travis to socialize downtown to be super annoying, so paying more to live close to town lake or soco is a better compromise than "out in the boonies" of Lake Travis? Assuming, of course, that there are affordable water-accessible places to live near town lake.

Anyone know where the "best places for clean air / to avoid allergies" are, while still in the Austin area? Anyone have links to air quality maps of the area?

Also I figured that living very near the water would probably be a couple degrees cooler in the summer, and some good breeze. Your water is pretty cold compared to most, so the breeze should be cool as well. Or doesn't this help in the triple digit summer?

There's many apartment complexes around Austin (or Georgetown, etc) that are on-the-water or complex-borders-the-water, are these worth the extra price or does the river bring in 100x more bugs and stank, so it ends up being more annoying than pleasurable?


Alright thanks for any opinions out there.

BTW if anyone has a 28' sailboat they want to lend me long term, send me an email. lol.

BTW #2, does anyone here live on a boat? (liveaboard)

[AustinGuy]

Austin is definitely the wrong city to be anywhere near if you are trying to avoid allergies.

[luksky]

And the water is diminishing slowly too... thanks to the drought.

[ILikeSmartHippies]

Originally Posted by AustinGuy

Austin is definitely the wrong city to be anywhere near if you are trying to avoid allergies.

without the recent posts here, I would not have guessed there was an allergy problem in austin area. it's the first I've read about it, and I've been web surfing to read up in preparation to check out austin for 4 months or so. an older message thread here, even ends with "The air is much nicer [in austin]" compared to los angeles. I am concerned about the allergy angle, and it can be independent of 'clean air' if the allergy is a pollen (air can still rate as clean while allergic people want to scoop out their itching eyeballs).. I was looking for some hard numbers on this but didnt find any except the recently posted "top 50 cities for bad allergies" list which listed austin in top 10 I think.

oh yeah the previous thread was here, //www.city-data.com/forum/austi...-report-2.html

[AustinGuy]

Austin made it to #1 on the list of "Worst Cities for Allergies" in 2007:

Austin ranked worst city for allergies | News for Austin, Texas | KVUE.com | Top Stories (http://www.kvue.com/news/top/stories/112007kvueallergies-cb.216fb8dd.html - broken link)

" According to the latest ranking from the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, there is no worst place to live for fall allergies than Austin, Texas."

[texastrigirl]

I can speak on sailing at Lake Travis. First off, the prime sailing season is more your November to April time frame and it is wonderful. The wind basically dies in the summer and that's when you will find low season rates at most of the sailing club. It can be sweltering to live on a boat in the summer...your air would be running all the time. We liked Texas Sailing personally for rentals. Great management, fleet and good rates. They do sail in the summer but it's low-key. Also know that "Lake" Travis is a river and you are constantly tacking. It's not the wide and you dodge a lot of speedboats in the summer months. I don't know where your sailing experience is but we sail in Seattle now and it is a COMPLETELY different experience. As far as living on your boat, a few folks live on houseboats here and there but in general, it's not like you would find in Seattle, San Fran, San Diego, etc. As for your assumption that it is cooler by the water...Texas is just plain hot hot hot mid-May to mid-October. The water in the summer in Lake Travis is like bathtub temperature in the high 80's. We have been swimming in the water as late as mid-December and it's still warmer than Washington lakes are in August. Austin was the fall allergy capital of the US for 2007 and it is know for cedar fever and ragweed. I didn't suffer that much but my husband did. You can do shots to deal with that though. THAT being said...Austin is a terrific city with many pros to outweigh the cons in my opinion so there are other reasons to live/be there. Hope this helps.

[EllenArlingtonPark]

Yeah, the draught will sure put the breaks on water fun! I am sure that because of this nasty draught the allergens are much worse than usual. Anybody out there know any rain dances???

[mark311]

Originally Posted by ILikeSmartHippies

without the recent posts here, I would not have guessed there was an allergy problem in austin area. it's the first I've read about it, and I've been web surfing to read up in preparation to check out austin for 4 months or so.

It takes years for the Austin area allergies to hit some people after they move here. "Cedar Fever" happens between December and February from the cedar pollen. Some of my neighbors and co-workers have a week or so when they are just miserable. It really feels like you are sick. It actually gets tough to distinguish whether it's allergies or a cold.

It really depends on the person. Cedar fever hasn't had a big impact on me yet and I've been here almost three years. Other people take Claritin and Flonase every day this time of year just so they can function regularly.

[txgolfer130]

While Austin is much, much better than LA air quality wise, when they say allergies they mean to natural occurring variety. Cedar, Oak, Mold(s), Ash, any of the 'berry variety. The worst for a majority of people is cedar fever, but others don't feel it much at all except for a headache and a runny nose. It's the grasses and everything else that bug them.

However, if you're a trooper or just will deal with it, then Austin is your place. The air to breathe is much nicer, and while there is starting to be a smog problem, it's nothing compared to LA. The difference in air quality wise is more than night and day.

[ILikeSmartHippies]

wow thanks for the info everyone.

i got really curious especially after reading some posts here about how a guy has lived in austin 10 years and only just had allergies "kick in" this year. etc. I know some theory says it's genetic however genes only turn "on" due to environmental change, so it makes me think that something changed in the environment of the guy's body, to make the allergies suddenly "kick in". So then I ran across this paper (just publised Jan 2009) which shows extensive evidence that allergies are related to ozone levels. Not related to particulates in the air. So increased cedar pollen wouldn't really make allegies "kick in"..

Question therefore is, has Ozone increased in austin significantly in the past few years? I guess you now have weather reports including ozone in the forecast right?

Second question is, for those people who are cedar-immune and suddenly cedar-affected (after years of "immunity"), is, has anything changed in their diet to trigger this??

Air Pollution and Childhood Respiratory Allergies in the United States

Air Pollution and Childhood Respiratory Allergies in the United States
Jennifer D. Parker,1 Lara J. Akinbami,1 and Tracey J. Woodruff2

Environ Health Perspect. 2009 January; 117(1): 140–147.



I had pretty bad allergies when I was younger. Then I moved to be on the ocean and they went away. I sure wouldnt want them to return.