Austin is the best city to live in Texas because:
Austinites rock!
The University of Texas and it's sports venues
Downtown Austin bars and clubs with their live music
South by Southwest and Austin City Limits
The numerous wonderful food carts in east, central downtown and south congress
Lake Travis, Lake Austin and Ladybird Lake
We have to walk to enjoy these Austin treasures. No wonder Austin is always ranked as one of the most fit cities in the US. There are many benefits to walking. It is a form of exercise. During exercise, your heart is pumping blood and oxygen around the body. If you walk during the day, you will be receiving sunlight and hence vitamin D. Vitamin D enhances the absorption of calcium, and it is often recommended for helping improve moods and treating depression. Another point about walking is you are utilizing all three planes of movement in the body. During walking, your hip is extending/flexing in the sagittal plane; abducting/adducting in the frontal plane and externally/internally rotating in the transverse plane. The sagittal plane divides our body into right and left. The frontal plane divides our body into the front and back and finally, the transverse is our top and bottom parts. This is important because a lot of us have sedentary jobs and complete inefficient workouts at the gym. For example, standard workouts usually only stress the chest, shoulders, back and arms. The problem with this is that only certain planes of the body are addressed but not all three. The transverse plane of movement is probably the most neglected. The most efficient workouts stress all three planes. I would recommend a workout circuit that involves walking, running, squatting, lunging, pushing, pulling and rotations. This will carry over into real life functional movements and sports. It will also create more balance in the body.
I would love to walk everywhere but my gym business is not walking distance. I would take the bus but I enjoy having a car. I own my car because I bought it used and don't want to be stuck with high interest car payments. A lot of affordable used cars have 75,000 or more miles and are past their warranties. So yes, you will have problems from time to time....
Enter Michael Yost and Yost automotive. He has saved my butt on many occasions. He is the fairest car mechanic. He will show you in person what is going on with your vehicle and will tell you what you need to have done in order to drive back to work. I have made the mistake of going to corporate automotive chains. They are notorious for ripping people off with unnecessary car repairs. He will even loan you one of his vehicles for only 10 dollars per day. They have two locations in Central Austin near the 2222/North lamar intersection. You can reach them at 512-452-YOST or 512-374-YOST....
So yes-Walking; owning a car and Michael Yost are all Austin ESSENTIALS!!!