McKinney Falls State Park

It's great having a Texas state park within city limits. It's gym as a hiking location and has some amazing waterfalls. You can spend your time hiking the multiple miles of trails or taking a dip in the water around the falls. I always recommend reserving you ticket ahead of time because the place is very popular.

We visited the park in 2020. It was an unplanned day or we would have stayed longer than we did. We hiked for a couple of hours and loved every minute. If we had been better prepared with snacks and water, we would have stayed even longer. Gorgeous setting and fun hiking around the rocks.

Fun park for camping or light hiking. Interesting features at the water and this park is very close to town and the Austin Airport.

This is one of the best parks I've ever been to. It's beautiful (has stunning views), there's a range of terrain, nice waterfalls, places to do some bouldering, historic sites, and great trails. Do yourself a favor and visit. I can't imagine you would regret it.

Nice state park, the maps and trails are a little confusing tbh. They encourage you to get the map via a QR code instead of a paper one, and the paper one they do have has less info. But since you’re probably going to lose cellular service you might want to save the map or take a screenshot or something!

And there are too many people here who do not have the right etiquette. We saw so much trash including beer cans just thrown into pools of water! And families with children blocking the trail (which crosses the river and is kind of narrow - so you really do need to wait for them to clear the area) plus the children screaming at the top of their lungs with the parents right next to them doing nothing at all.

That said, the park is pretty nice and well maintained! Nice restrooms, nice picnic area and playground for children, helpful rangers and although the website suggests you print the day pass out, we showed them the online receipt and they gave us a printed out parking pass for the car
Definitely do recommend buying your reservations online as the park fills up, especially on long weekends and holidays. Also ask the rangers for less crowded trails so you don’t have to deal with disrespectful people who don’t follow park rules!