disclosure: I was proved with a Kia Rio, by STI Fleet Services, to facilitate this review.
Austin, TX is a great city! I had so much fun there last week. My friend (and neighbor), Franki, and I went to Austin for a long weekend just to get away and have some fun in a place we have always wanted to visit. And although Austin is a great town to walk around, it is even better with a car. STI Fleet Services was kind enough to provide us with a Kia Rio 5-dorr for the trip. The Kia Rio was just the perfect size for the two of us and our luggage.
We used that Kia Rio to hop over to South Congress St, we were staying on the other side of Lady Bird Lake, way up on North Congress, and from there we visited Allens Boots, Amy’s Ice Cream, lots of cool little shops and even Magnolia Cafe. Allens Boots were a MUST-STOP sort of place with the most amazing selection of fine boots. Franki even picked up a pay of Old Gringos. But South Congress is rear-in, diagonal parking only! Yikes. Good thing the Kia Rio is compact, with a fantastic turning radius. Lets just say I put that turning radius to the test a few times on this adventure. Shh. And the Kia Rio had an in-dash backup camera. I loved it in helping me park on the busy South Congress street.
But we didn’t just putz around on South Congress, we took the Kia Rio out to the famous Salt Lick barbecue restaurant. We utilized the built in navigation system to help us find our way. It was about 30 minutes out of town and has this really fun BBQ atmosphere. The Kia Rio rode wonderfully on the highway as well as the dirt parking lot of Salt Lick. Probably one of our favorite excursions was down First Street to visit some of the food trucks. We stopped at Torchy’s Tacos and Wholly Cacao where we got fried avocado tacos and lavender/orange cake bites, plus a really decadent frozen hot chocolate.
While the temperature in Austin was in the 90′s, our Kia Rio kept us super cool as we jetted all over town stopping at the original Whole Foods store for some awesome and local Kombucha. The Kia Rio was such an asset in such a fun town, and with the push start button we could get back on the road quickly. It allowed us to easily hop from destination to destination without eating up a ton of gas. It had plenty of space for our luggage and packages, and it fit easily into the parking spaces we could find. Austin is a busy city and there were days when parking was at a premium. I needed all the help I could get.
Our Kia Rio came in a beautiful electronic blue and was decked out with all the extras. I really enjoyed our time in Austin and am very thankful for having the Kia Rio to take us all over town exploring and having fun.
