AUSTIN, TX — One of the key entrepreneurial attributes in launching a small business is fearlessness, especially staring a company in a thriving marketplace where competition abounds. By that measure alone, Meagan Fritts is already a corporate success story.

A recent Austin transplant from a small town in Arkansas, Fritts last month launched Twisted Texas Tours, a touring business offering 2- to 2 1/2-hour excursions to some of the capital city's most interesting stops. The company offers two signature tours showcasing quintessentially Austin venues, the Comedy City Tour and the Live Music & Brewery Tour, offering visitors and locals alike one-of-a-kind experiences described as being suffused with "...risqué comedy, unusual histories, live music and, of course, the option to bring your own adult beverages." How fun is that?!?! The tours enables patrons to discover Austin weird, wacky and wild sides in a city that has as unofficial mantra the charge to "Keep Austin Weird."

"Twisted Texas' Comedy City Tour is an unforgettable musical-comedy extravaganza on wheels," company literature describes. "Led by sidesplitting guides, this tour shows off Austin like it's never been seen before. Scandalous gossip, dark twisted history, and of course, all the ways Austin is 'Keepin' it Weird' are discussed between quips and musical numbers on this rolling variety show."

The ability to have tapped into such Austin-centric enjoyments further attests to Fritts' business acumen, yet she's no stranger to the business world. Twisted Texas Tours is an offshoot of her first business, Access ATX launched in 2015 that offers sightseeing trips to the Hill Country with stops at the best barbecue joints, restaurants and vineyards across the bucolic landscape.



During a recent telephone interview with Patch, Fritts — young, single and career-driven — said she was lured to Austin's uniqueness when she moved here in 2011. While enjoying her new environs, she also took to the task of market research. "I'd ask people what there was to see in Austin," she said, describing the research she conducted prior to launching Twisted Texas Tours. "I wanted to see all the weird stuff. The weird stuff doesn't just happen on demand," she soon found. "They're random occurrences rather than tourist attractions."



With that spontaneity in mind, she began targeting the most interesting spots to include in the tour in a city dotted with fun and eccentric venues. The aim was to pick places where a good time (read weird, but in the best of ways) was sure to be had, with revelers arriving at the various spots on modified school buses, in full party mode. Along the way, local bands entertain the guests, with the stops spaced apart accordingly to allow musicians to play their songs uninterrupted until the next stop.

"If I couldn't make the weird come to the tours, I'd create the weird," she said with a laugh. "That's what we're aiming for."



And so, Twisted Texas Tours was born on Sept. 23, and has already built an audience. This November, Twisted Texas Tours is offering safe transportation from downtown Austin, leaving from Waller Creek Pub House, to New Braunfels' Wurstfest. Other than such special events excursions, the two distinct tours offered by Twisted Texas Tours are:

