Hey there!

Thanks for picking up our annual Outdoors issue, my first one as the magazine’s editor.

I’m a relatively new Austinite. I moved here about a year ago from Reykjavik, Iceland, but I’ve been a regular visitor since 2009, when I first briefly lived here—and survived that summer of 68 days over 100 ° F—before taking off for a colder place.

Coming to this sunny clime from a windy island in the middle of the North Atlantic, I relish spending tons of time outdoors. And aside from the couple of unbearably hot months every year, I’ve always considered Austin an outdoor enthusiast’s dream. We get an average 60 percent sunny days
every year, and there are so many beautiful outdoor spaces in which to go and soak up that Vitamin D.

To celebrate some of those idylls—Zilker Park, Barton Springs, and Lady Bird Lake among them—we decided to reach out to their regulars: barflies, if you will, of the park, the pool and the lake.

Read more.