From afar, Austin looks like a daunting high-rise city – it’s studded with glass shards arrayed alongside the Colorado River in unforgiving geometric grids – but zoom in and you’ll find a progressive bubble in America’s bible belt. There’s the graffiti park of Castle Hill and the vintage shops of Travis Heights, while the gregarious can go skinny-dipping in Hippie Hollow Park. Austin is famous firstly, for being the most liberal city in Texas, and secondly as (allegedly) the drunkest city in the US. This vibrant Texas town is certainly not short on watering holes and social lubricant runs like a tap on full flow. If you’re looking for drinking buddies, head to Whisler’s. It’s a madcap bar stuffed with so much ranch paraphernalia that you’ll have no choice but to rub shoulders with the city’s most eccentric nighthawks.