St. Louis, Missouri is a city where I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but once there, I wanted to stay longer. Its historic neighborhoods, blues music, variety of attractions, and food scene left us with a positive impression and it’s somewhere I definitely wouldn’t overlook for a city getaway. Here are some of the highlights of our visit.

Things To Do

Gateway Arch National Park – Did you know the Gateway Arch is a National Park? Most people don’t, but it is considered one of the U.S.’s 63 national parks. This was one of the main reasons we came to St. Louis, and our experience here was actually more interesting than I thought it might be. We started our time at the arch outside admiring how tall it is (630 feet – the tallest monument in the U.S.!) and taking photos.

We then went inside the visitor center that is under the arch to explore their museum, watch a documentary about the building of the arch, and ride the tram to the top. While the museum is free – and I highly recommend spending an hour or two going through it as I learned so much about St. Louis history there – the documentary and tram are not. You can book tickets for those activities online here. I do recommend booking tickets ahead of time as they can sell out. Also note that there is a security screening you have to go through once inside the visitor center. It is recommended to allow up to 30 minutes for this.

The documentary was 35 minutes long and showed the process of the arch being built in the 1960s. While what the documentary did show was interesting, I think we had hoped it would share more info on the arch overall than just the construction portion of it.

The tram ride to the top was a highlight of our time at the arch. Because of the shape and size of the arch, there are small, somewhat claustrophobic trams that seat only 5 people that bring you up to the top. Pre-boarding you are entertained with 60s era animation and Gateway Arch trivia before boarding and spending four minutes on the tram to get up. Once at the top, you are given 10 minutes to enjoy the view of the city of St. Louis on one side and Illinois on the other. After, there is another 3 minute tram ride down. We felt the tram ride was very well organized and was a positive experience for us.

Listen to Blues Music – St. Louis is known for its blues music scene and its a genre of music I enjoy so we wanted to listen to some live blues music. There are various places in town that have blues music with Hammerstone’s being one of the most popular since they have live performers every night and on weekends.

National Blues Museum – While it was closed the days we were in town, I would have loved to visit the National Blues Museum and learn more about the historic and impact of blues music.

Soulard Farmers Market – The Soulard Farmers market is the old public market in the United States west of the Mississippi River, having been established in 1779. It is still running to this day so we went there to browse the foods and goods for sale in the various stalls. The market is open year round Wednesday through Sunday.

Anheuser Busch Brewery – Anheuser Busch is a historic brewery founded in St. Louis, Missouri and is most known for its Budweiser beer. They offer a variety of tours and experiences including an opportunity to meet one of the famous Clydesdale horses.

Where We Stayed

We stayed in this one bedroom apartment that is walking distance from the historic Soulard neighborhood. It had plenty of space and a super comfortable bed.

I would recommend staying in either the Soulard, downtown, or midtown areas as those are the closest to most attractions.

Where We Ate

One of my favorite elements of travel is trying the local foods and St. Louis has quite a few notable food items.

Pappy’s Smokehouse is the place to go in St. Louis for BBQ and has been voted best ribs in the country by the Food Network. We tried a variety of items here – smoked chicken, ribs, baked beans, fried corn on the cob, sweet potatoes fries – and everything was delicious.

I also had heard of a dessert in St. Louis called butter cake. We found that Park Avenue Coffee is known for their gooey butter cakes so we went to their Lafayette Square location to try two varieties: Mom’s Traditional and White Chocolate Raspberry. The Mom’s Traditional was incredibly sweet while the raspberry in the White Chocolate Raspberry balanced some of the sweetness out and was our preferred butter cake. I am glad we tried butter cake, but it’s definitely a very sweet (possible too sweet) dessert choice!

Another St. Louis food item is toasted ravioli. Toasted ravioli is a breaded, deep-fried ravioli appetizer served with marinara sauce. Various restaurants in St. Louis serve toasted ravioli but one of the most known locations for it is Mama’s on the Hill so we went there. I enjoyed the crunchy taste of the toasted ravioli and would say it is similar to mozzarella sticks in terms of flavor. If you do decide to go to Mama’s on the Hill to try it, I recommend making a reservation ahead of time.

A food item I didn’t get to try but would have liked to is St. Louis style pizza. St. Louis style pizza was recommended to us by a few different people and was described as having a cracker-like crust and is topped with a slightly sweet tomato sauce and Provel cheese. There is a popular St. Louis pizza chain called Imo’s that is known for their St. Louis style pizza.

South or Mid-West?

A question I had mulled before our visit to St. Louis was whether they consider themselves the southerners or mid-westerners. After speaking with a few people, the consensus was that residents of St. Louis consider themselves mid-westerners. However, there are other parts of the state of Missouri that do more closely identify with the south.

Overall St. Louis is a destination we really enjoyed and I feel is underrated but so worth a visit. Would you visit St. Louis?