Author

David Courtney

David Courtney's Profile Photo

A Temple native, David Courtney is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. He joined Texas Monthly in October 2005 and in July 2007 debuted his wildly popular advice column, The Texanist, regularly the magazine’s most-read feature.

In 2017, the University of Texas Press published The Texanist: Fine Advice on Living in Texas and in 2019 Fox Entertainment optioned the column with plans to develop a television show based on it. As the Texanist and as himself, Courtney has contributed his talents to such endeavors as the annual Bum Steer Awards, the quinquennial review of the fifty best barbecue joints in Texas, “The 50 Greatest Hamburgers in Texas,” “The 40 Best Small-Town Cafes,” and “Snap Judgment,” a compilation of the ten greatest plays in Texas college football, as well as “The Beachcomber,” for which he walked the entire 65-mile length of the Padre Island National Seashore, and “Water, Water Everywhere,” for which he swam buck naked in Lake Travis, outside of Austin.
texanist nude sunbathing
The Texanist |
September 30, 2011

Offering Fine Advice Since 2007

How do I explain topless sunbathing in Austin to my children? Illustration by Jack UnruhQ: I was in Austin visiting my brother recently, and he took me and my kids, a nine-year-old girl and a ten-year-old boy, to Barton Springs Pool to go swimming.

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Feature |
July 31, 2010

The Texanist’s Favorite Road Food

As anyone who has eaten too many heat-lamp hot dogs smothered in pump chili knows, the foodstuff consumed on the way to your destination can be one of the horrors of the trip. To help guide your gastronomic ramblings this summer, we asked our advice columnist for his five snacks.Beef

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Feature |
May 31, 2009

Bright Skies, Big Shell

Location: Padre Island National SeashoreWhat You’ll Need: Sleeping bag, marshmallow-roasting stickSummer is not endless, and neither is the Padre Island National Seashore. But its 67.5-mile length is more than half of the whole of Padre Island, the world’s longest barrier island. And with that comes the

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