Lush trees, clear air, a good book, the soft sound of a nature breeze. That is exactly how I pictured spending my birthday — and somehow, without entirely planning it, exactly what I got.
There is a particular kind of birthday that asks nothing of you. No dinner reservations at the loudest new restaurant, no itinerary packed so tightly it becomes its own kind of exhaustion. Just water, and quiet, and the rare, radical permission to do absolutely nothing well.
Lake Austin Spa Resort
The Place I Almost Didn’t Know Existed
Nature has always done something good for my soul. There is something about being around trees, open air, and moving water that quietly resets everything — and when my co-founder Codi suggested I come visit her in Austin and pointed me toward a spot tucked twenty miles from downtown along a quiet bend of the Colorado River, I didn’t ask many questions.
Lake Austin Spa Resort is the kind of place that earns its reputation slowly, through word of mouth passed between people who’ve been and can’t quite explain what happened to them there. It is not flashy. It does not announce itself. Forty bungalows and cottages nestle into the Texas Hill Country like they grew there, surrounded by rolling hills and the kind of stillness that feels almost architectural — like it was designed into the landscape on purpose.
What Codi had found, it turned out, was one of the most quietly legendary wellness destinations in the country. Ranked the number one destination spa in the US by Condé Nast Traveler’s 2025 readers. Over a decade of Top 10 recognition from Travel + Leisure. And a history so unexpectedly colorful — fishing camp in the 1940s, brief nudist colony in the 70s, working rodeo ranch with actual cowboys and rodeo clowns.
But none of that history is what you feel when you arrive. What you feel is the water.
A Day That Moved Like a Slow River
We arrived in the early morning, when the Texas heat was still gentle and the lake was glassy and flat. Arriving somewhere beautiful before the day has fully decided what it wants to be does something to you — everything feels more possible, more open.
The LakeHouse Spa
We went straight to the LakeHouse Spa, which sprawls across 25,000 square feet of terraced gardens and treatment rooms — some of them open-air garden tents, some tucked into private suites with their own in-ground hot tubs. The spa menu reads like a small novel: massage therapies, aquatic specialties, energy work, CBD treatments, facials rooted in the region’s natural rhythms. We had chosen facials first, which turned out to be exactly right. There is no better way to arrive in your body than to spend an hour having someone tend to your face in a quiet room while birds do whatever birds do outside.
Lunch in the Courtyard
After, we ate lunch in the courtyard. The resort grows much of its own produce in on-site organic gardens, and you can taste it — not in a performative farm-to-table way, but in the way that food tastes when it hasn’t traveled very far to reach you. We sat in our robes because no one told us we couldn’t, and the afternoon light came through the trees at exactly the angle that makes everything look like a painting.
Massages, Then the Lake
I don’t have a more elegant way to describe what happened next than this: we dragged lounge chairs to the water’s edge and stayed there for a very long time. Books open, music low, the kind of conversation that only happens when neither person is in a hurry. Paddleboards floated past. A heron stood in the shallows with the patience of something ancient. The heat was warm and total and completely bearable because the water was right there, and we were in no rush to go anywhere at all.
The Birthday Cake
And then the cake appeared.
Codi had arranged it with the staff — had somehow, in the logistics of facials and lunch and robes and lake chairs and it sitting in the plain backseat of her car, managed to completely surprise me. The staff brought it out with the kind of warmth that only exists at places where people actually love where they work. I was, embarrassingly, a little undone by it.
It was a very good birthday.
What to Know Before You Go
Go for at least a night — the morning on the lake is something you will want to wake up inside of. Book treatments in advance, the LakeHouse Spa fills quickly and you will want time to wander between them rather than rush. Order from the organic menu slowly. Bring a book you’ve been meaning to read for months. Rent a paddleboard at least once even if you’re not sure about it.
The Stay
- 40 private bungalows and cottages, each with bespoke furnishings and thoughtful amenities
- All meals included — locally sourced, organic, and genuinely good
- Vitamin C-infused showers, lavender bath amenities, in-room filtered water
- All tips and gratuities included — a rare and appreciated touch
The Spa
- 25,000 sq ft LakeHouse Spa with 30+ treatment areas including open-air garden tents and private suites
- 100+ treatments across massage, facials, aquatic therapies, energy work, CBD treatments and more
- Ranked #1 Destination Spa in the US — Condé Nast Traveler 2025 Readers’ Choice
The Lake
- Direct lake access with complimentary paddleboards, kayaks and hydrobikes
- Two pools, hot tub, sauna, steam room
- Daily wellness programs and fitness classes included
Lake Austin Spa Resort is located twenty miles from downtown Austin, Texas.
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Solgaard
What You Pack for a Week of Intentional Living
A trip like this — a full week in Austin, with spa days, lake days, THE RODEO (my first time!!), and dinners and the kind of slow mornings that require multiple outfit options — asks something specific of your luggage. It asks for order. It asks for lightness, in both senses of the word. And it asks to not make the beginning or end of a beautiful trip into a logistical nightmare.
That is where Solgaard came in.
The Check-In Closet Original
I packed everything for the week — the linen sets for Austin’s heat, the resort-ready pieces, the things you bring for the evenings — into the Check-In Closet Original, and the experience was one of those small, genuinely satisfying surprises that good design occasionally delivers. The suitcase opens into what Solgaard calls its FlowCloset system: built-in shelving that turns the inside of your luggage into something closer to an actual closet than a compressed pile of regret. Things stay where you put them and take approximately four minutes to unpack.
The shell is polycarbonate — lightweight but with the kind of structural confidence that makes you stop worrying about it the moment you hand it over. It moves easily. It doesn’t fight you. The wheels are smooth, the handle has a grip that actually feels like it was designed for a human hand, and the depth is generous in a way that standard suitcases rarely are — more square, more considered, more space than you’d expect. I grabbed mine in black, because apparently that is just who I am as a person, though the colorways almost converted me — from a muted Gothenburg Gray to a Provence Purple that walks the line between bold and refined. One day.
The closure is dual-lock rather than zipper, which took about thirty seconds to adjust to and then felt immediately more secure. People noticed it at the airport — not in a loud way, just in the quiet way that well-designed things get noticed. And I was genuinely happy to be traveling with something so easy.
The Carry-On Closet Original & The Long Haul Combo
For shorter trips — the overnight, the long weekend, the spontaneous Austin day-trip that turns into two nights — the Carry-On Closet Original brings the same FlowCloset system in a smaller frame, with interior dividers that keep everything separated and accessible without having to dig. It’s the kind of carry-on that makes you realize how much dead space most luggage wastes. The two together make up The Long Haul Combo — Solgaard‘s answer to the traveler who wants one system, two sizes, and zero chaos regardless of how long they’re gone.
The Brand: Travel with a Conscience
Solgaard was founded on a premise that sounds simple and is actually quite radical: that the things we travel with should be built to last, and that building them shouldn’t cost the planet something it can’t afford.
Every Solgaard purchase contributes to removing ocean-bound plastic from coastlines before it reaches the water — the brand has helped prevent over three million pounds of plastic waste in partnership with its impact network and the Solgaard Nyx Foundation. The material used in many of their pieces, Shore-Tex, is made from this recovered plastic, which means your luggage is doing something before you’ve even packed it.
What Makes Solgaard Different
+ FlowCloset™ system — built-in shelving that keeps everything organized and visible
+ Shore-Tex® material — made from recovered ocean-bound plastic
+ Polycarbonate shell — lightweight, durable, TSA-approved dual-lock closure
+ Lifetime warranty + 30-day trial on every piece
+ B Corp certified — travel that’s genuinely good for the planet
The Full Solgaard lineup
The product ecosystem spans well beyond luggage:
+ Backpacks: Venture, Lifepack, Artemis, Compass
+ Bags: Voyager Weekender
+ Accessories: Packing Cubes, Toiletry Kits
+ Tech: Solarbank solar-powered portable charger, Solarbank Boombox
+ Luggage: Carry-On Closet Original, Check-In Closet Original, The Long Haul Combo
The whole range is designed around the idea that travel should be thoughtful, not just convenient — that the things you bring with you are an extension of how you move through the world.
Every piece comes with a lifetime warranty and a thirty-day trial. And it comes, if you choose, in a purple that would look very good resting against the dock at Lake Austin, waiting for you to stop reading and get in the water.
