Fodor's Expert Review Zilker Park

The former site of temporary Franciscan missions in the 1700s and a former Native American gathering place is now Austin's everyday backyard park. The enormous 351-acre site that sprawls along the shores of Lady Bird Lake includes Barton Springs Pool, numerous gardens, a meditation trail, and a Swedish log cabin dating from the 1840s. In the spring, the park hosts a kite festival as well as concerts in the park's Zilker Hillside Theater, a natural outdoor amphitheater beneath a grove of century-old pecan trees; in July and August, musicals and plays take over. And, of course, the annual Austin City Limits Music Festival rules here every year in October.