East Austin’s live oaks predate everything around them — heritage-protected canopies 60 feet across, shading bungalow lots that now sit between five-story builds. The new construction actually helps: the towers add afternoon building shadow to streets that only had tree cover before.
These picks run the oak streets and drop to the lake trail’s cypress bank, the coolest continuous walk in the city. August afternoons are still a morning-and-evening proposition — Stay Cool will tell you when the window closes.