Ultimate Guide to 3 Days in St. Louis, MO

When considering cities to visit for my mom and I's first annual mother/daughter trip, we examined things we each like to do. I love sight seeing, and scenic routes. My mom enjoys a type of downtown/city atmosphere and having most everything to do, in one area. We also took into consideration what cities were cheapest to fly too and the states we each haven't visited yet. To be quite honest, St. Louis, Missouri caught our eye because a roundtrip flight with American Airlines was only $130. I then quickly looked up blogs and YouTube videos on what to do in St. Louis and was blown away. It was a perfect mix of my sight seeing, and my mom's downtown atmosphere.

Where We Stayed: We stayed at the Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark, which was in the middle of downtown. You can choose whether you want a ballpark view or a city/gateway arch view from your room. It was a total of $314 for 3 nights. It has a Starbucks right next to the lobby. It has 3 restaurants on the first floor. It was close to EVERYTHING. It was right across the street from Ballpark Village, Busch Stadium, Kiener Plaza Park, and the Old Courthouse. It was walking distance to the Gateway Arch National Park, The Basilica of St. Louis, King of France, Union Station, City Garden Sculpture Park, and popular restaurants such as Sugarfire, Imo's Pizza, and Caleco's.

Day 1: Landed in St. Louis at 11:30 am and got to our Hotel by 12:00 pm. We quickly freshened up and called an Uber to take us to St. Charles, Missouri which was only 15 minutes away. We spent the entire day exploring St. Charles. Majority of our time was spent in Historic District Main Street. Every Saturday they have a farmers market that takes place on this street. During fall, they get so festive and creative. Every weekend leading up to Halloween, they have characters dressed up as witches, robots, ghosts, vampires, etc. roaming the streets and interacting with you. It's not scary at all, it's the exact opposite, as they aim to make it extremely kid friendly. In addition to this, they have something called a "pumpkin glow" and there are glowing pumpkins all along the main street. The best way to describe Historic District Main Street would be, it is as if you are literally in an episode of Gilmore Girls or a Hallmark movie! The trees are orange, yellow, and deep red and there are beautiful fall leaves all along the street. The way trees should be during fall but obviously in Texas, we don't get that. The entire street is filled with old and beautiful homes that have been remodeled into boutiques, antique shops, bars, and restaurants. There is truly something for everyone and so much to see!

Day 2: Started our morning with an Uber to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis for mass, which was 7 minutes away. The Cathedral was breathtaking and huge. It is so hard to believe that something that beautiful actually exists in the United States. We could have spent endless hours in there! We then walked to the World Chess Hall Of Fame which was neat to see, even though we are not big into Chess. We kept walking and found a coffee shop called Kaldi's Coffee which came recommended from one of the boutique owners in St. Charles. The matcha was delicious and their cold brew was tasty! Highly recommend, if you need a caffeine stop. We walked across the street and had lunch at Drunken Fish. The sushi was to die for. We kept walking and ended up at the St. Louis Art Museum. Big Tip: The Zoo, museum, botanical gardens, parks, are ALL FREE OF CHARGE!!! This was something my mom and I took full advantage of and another reason why St. Louis is a MUST SEE. The art museum was smack dab in the middle of Forest Park which was beautiful. I have no words for it. It reminds me of Central Park in NY. It's huge and so much to do! The are beautiful trees, so many photo ops, and you can even get a paddle boat to go around the small body of water they have at the park! From here, we took an Uber to Delmar Loop and walked around this highly recommended area which is in a college town, and was full of shops and restaurants. For dinner we ate Caleco's which was right across from our hotel. I tried out their toasted ravioli (which is apparently a must have when in St. Louis) and it did not disappoint!!

Day 3: This day was extremely rainy, cold, and windy but we did not let that stop us or slow us down. We bundled up and weathered it all. We walked to the Gateway Arch National Park, explored the Arch and the museum which is right under the Arch. Again, all FREE. We then went across the street to explore and walk around Busch Stadium and Ballpark Village. After getting our baseball fill, we walked to Sugarfire for lunch. Sugarfire is an extremely popular barbeque place. Mind you, we were VERY skeptical about trying out St. Louis barbeque only because Texas barbeque is undefeated and leaves us with sky high expectations. But we decided to give it a try since St. Louis is known for their ribs. Sure enough, Sugarfire was amazing! Could definitely compete with Texas barbeque and would highly recommend to anyone! From Sugarfire, we walked to Union Station which has an amazing historic hotel to explore, a neat Ferris wheel, restaurants, a new aquarium, and something called the "Halloween Experience" which takes place in this old and abandoned trains. For these events, there was a charge, but we weren't too interested in any of them so we just walked around and got a feel of everything. After this, we walked back towards our hotel which was a mile away but down this mile was City Garden Sculpture park, Old Courthouses, Basilica St. Louis, and small parks everywhere. So much to see and do! We stopped at everything we thought looked interesting (which was all of it) and took our time. By the time we got back to our hotel, it was getting dark. And per recommended by just about EVERYONE, it was not safe to be out in downtown after dark. Our feet were soaked wet. We were freezing cold. Thank goodness we had umbrellas. We freshened up and had dinner at our rooftop bar which was a nighttime hot spot for all of St. Louis and was classy, elegant, with amazing food.

Tips:

- One of the cons of our trip was that, obviously because of covid, plenty of activities and places closed early (weekend or not, most places closed at 5 pm), or were just closed in general.

- Downtown was a ghost town and was not booming, like it usually is.

- Uber was super cheap since everything is no more than 7/15 minutes away.

- We got to the airport an hour and 15 minutes before our flight and that was MORE than enough time because the airport was not busy at all. It is more on the "small" side, so everything went by quick.

My mom and I fit so much into a 3 day trip! Initially, I went into the trip with the mindset of "oh this is just another state to cross off my list", but it really blew me away with how much there was to see and do. Missouri is a must do. I can't even imagine how much more we could have done if it wasn't for covid!

If you are planning a trip to St. Louis or thinking about it, don't hesitate to reach out to me! I would love to help any way I can!

XOXO,

Tess