Barton Springs is open again. The Pedernales is running cold across the limestone shelves at the falls, the cypress has filled in over Cypress Creek outside Wimberley, and out at Krause Springs the gravel lot starts turning over by midmorning. Somewhere a kid is shrieking on the way into 68-degree water for the first time this year. Hill Country water season is here.
What follows is a quick tour of eight swimming holes within day-trip range of Austin — what they look like this summer, what is open and what is not, and what it takes to get in the water in 2026. Some of these places have changed quietly in the last four years. A few have changed loudly. The drive to all of them still feels the same.
Barton Springs Pool is where any honest Austin list starts. Three spring-fed acres in Zilker, water that holds 68 to 70 degrees year-round, and somewhere around 800,000 visitors a year passing under the same pecan trees. The pool reopened March 21 after a maintenance closure that ran a week long while crews finished underwater skimmer work. Fees are charged from Austin ISD spring break through the end of October, with free windows early in the morning and late at night during the charged season — the regulars still time their swims around the gate. Daily admission is $5 for resident adults and $9 for non-resident adults, with lower rates for kids, juniors and seniors. The pool closes from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. every Thursday so staff can clean the algae off the bottom. There is no swimming hole in Texas with more cultural weight, and that is true whether you have been going since you were 5 or you moved here last August.
McKinney Falls State Park is the closest swim spot on this list to the inside of Austin — 13 miles from the Capitol, give or take. Onion Creek runs over limestone ledges into the Upper and Lower Falls, both of them workable swim spots when the creek is behaving. Day-use is $6 per person for ages 13 and up, gates open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., and reservations are the rule unless you like getting turned around in the entrance loop. The park closes to walk-ups by midmorning most summer weekends. Coolers are not allowed at the falls; picnic in the designated areas and walk to the water. A burn ban has been in effect since February, which means propane and charcoal only — no wood fires.
Jacob’s Well Natural Area outside Wimberley is the most photographed karst spring in Texas, and for the fourth straight summer, you cannot swim in it. Hays County closed the water in June 2022, and drought plus a thinning aquifer means it stays that way through 2026. The 81-acre preserve is still open daily for hiking, no reservation required, and the well itself is genuinely strange and beautiful from the overlook — a perfect blue shaft dropped straight through limestone, deeper than it looks, colder than anything has a right to be. The spring is the headwater for Cypress Creek, which feeds Blue Hole, which feeds the Blanco. Its condition is not a Wimberley story. It is a regional one.
Blue Hole Regional Park, a few miles downstream, is doing the swimming Jacob’s Well no longer can. The City of Wimberley opened its 2026 season on May 1, with daily operation through Labor Day and weekend-only access through the end of September. Reservations are required for the swim area; the trails, playgrounds and picnic spaces stay free year-round. Half-day passes run $15 for adults, $10 for youth, seniors and military, and $6 for Wimberley residents. Cypress shade, rope swings, a soft swim lawn. It earns the reservations.
Hamilton Pool Preserve sits west of Austin in Dripping Springs, an easy detour off U.S. 290, and it is the spot on this list that takes the most patience. Reservations are open online through July 2026; August and September dates have not been released. Swimming itself is never guaranteed — Travis County calls it day by day based on bacteria counts and recent rain. Two timed sessions run daily, morning from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and afternoon from 2 to 5:30 p.m., at $12 per vehicle plus a per-person fee at the gate. The trail under the overhanging cliff is closed for safety. Even so, the line of cars at the gate is full every weekend, and the people in it know exactly what they are waiting for.
Krause Springs in Spicewood is the quiet contrast. Privately held by the Krause family since the mid-1950s, listed on the National Register of Historic Sites, no reservations, $10 for adult admission, doors open 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. through the warm months. Thirty-two natural springs feed a manmade pool and a natural pool that flows on toward Lake Travis. The water holds 68 degrees year-round. Picnic tables under live oaks. A butterfly garden. Wind chimes in the trees that you can hear from the lower pool. A rope swing that has launched three generations of teenagers. It is the kind of place that, in about 90 seconds, explains the Hill Country to a first-time visitor.
Pedernales Falls State Park, 30 miles west of Austin near Johnson City, is the moodiest stop on the list. The river spills across wide, tilted shelves of limestone, and on a low-water day the riverbed itself becomes the attraction — caves, sand bars, hidden crevices the kids will disappear into for an hour. Swimming is not allowed at the falls themselves; the currents above and below the drops are dangerous and rangers enforce the rule strictly. The designated swim area sits downriver near Jones Spring, a quarter-mile hike from the lot with some steep rock stairs to get there. Day-use is $6 per person for ages 13 and up, gates run 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., and the park regularly fills on summer weekends. This stretch of the Pedernales is also in Flash Flood Alley. If the sky goes gray upriver, get off the rocks and back to the car.
Inks Lake State Park, 50 miles northwest of Austin near Burnet, is the swimming hole for anybody who wants to jump off something. Devil’s Waterhole is a granite-walled inlet at the eastern end of the park with ledges from a couple of feet up to about 40, and the water below sits at a constant level because of a dam on the Colorado River. Day-use is $7 per person for ages 13 and up; kids 12 and under are free. Gates open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. No lifeguards. Reservations book up weeks ahead for summer weekends, and the lots near the waterhole fill first. The park rents kayaks, canoes and paddleboards through the boathouse, and 12 miles of trails wind through the pink gneiss outcrops if you need a break from the water. Wear shoes on the granite. It gets hot enough by noon to remember.
A quick note for the planning calendar: three of these eight have access restrictions that did not exist a decade ago, and the system as a whole is moving toward more reservations, more daily calls and more drought-driven closures. The water is still here. It just takes more planning than it used to. Pack the cooler accordingly.
