Two-Day Getaway in St. Louis

Whether you’re spending four or 48 hours in St. Louis, you must visit Gateway Arch National Park. Did you know that you can take a tram ride to the top of the Gateway Arch, too? After you squeeze into a futuristic, five-person pod, it takes four minutes to ascend. At the top of the 630-foot-tall monument, small windows reveal unbeatable bird’s-eye views. Below the iconic landmark, the Museum at the Gateway Arch offers a free, innovative and accessible experience, showcasing more than 200 years of St. Louis history. While you’re here, climb aboard the Riverboats at the Gateway Arch or step inside the Old Courthouse. Reopening in spring 2025 after a two-year, multimillion-dollar renovation, the latter heard more than 300 freedom suits, including the pivotal Dred and Harriet Scott cases, before the American Civil War. It’s also where Virginia Minor sued for her right to vote in Missouri in 1872 – the same year that Susan B. Anthony was arrested for trying to vote.

In addition to the Saint Louis Zoo, Forest Park encompasses the Missouri History Museum, Saint Louis Art Museum and Saint Louis Science Center, all of which are free! When the weather is pleasant, though, the park’s natural landscapes beckon. In recent years, Forest Park Forever, a private nonprofit conservancy and the steward of this local treasure, has made a concerted effort to rewild the park, restoring and reinvigorating the native beauty and ecological diversity of the environment. Today, more than 30 miles of walking and biking trails traverse Forest Park, which also boasts more than 190 acres of nature reserves that encompass old-growth forests, restored forests and woodlands, wetlands, tallgrass prairies and savannas. These habitats form a corridor across the park that both wildlife and visitors utilize. To explore the crystalline waterways of the park, head to The Boathouse where you can rent paddle boats, canoes and kayaks in spring, summer and fall from Big Muddy Adventures.

Touted as the best fans in baseball, St. Louis Cardinals supporters dress in red and descend on Busch Stadium in droves. The current ballpark opened in downtown St. Louis on April 10, 2006, becoming a good luck charm for the home team who became the first team in almost 100 years to win the World Series in the inaugural season of a new ballpark. The retro-style stadium has 46,000 seats with a great view from each. Here, the 11-time World Series Champion team is the main draw, but there are also game-day activities that you’ll find fun even if you’re not a fan of baseball. Home games include batting practice, Fredbird sightings and some of the best hot dogs in town. While you’re here, snap a photo with the bronze statue of Cardinals legend Stan “The Man” Musial, which stands outside the Gate 3 entrance, and check out the food and entertainment options at Ballpark Village.

Colorful, quirky and captivating, City Museum is as much a playground as it is a museum, and you’re never too old to have a good time. Housed in a 600,000-square-foot former shoe company warehouse, the unique attraction uses repurposed objects – think cupcake tins, bicycle gears, glass marbles and safety deposit boxes – to build immersive exhibits. Dedicate at least two of your 48 hours in St. Louis to exploring. You can snuggle between the teeth of a T-rex, drive a school bus off the roof, play hide-and-seek in enchanted caves, rocket down a 10-story slide and more. How serious is City Museum about exploring? The gift shop sells knee pads – which aren’t a bad idea.

An epic adventure for preschoolers and young children, The Magic House offers hands-on interactive exhibits, where they can explore a child-size village, investigate scientific wonders and discover a new culture. Older children will also enjoy surrounding themselves in an enormous bubble, experimenting with a 3D printer, training like a soccer player and taking a video with their hand on an electrically charged ball. (Spoiler alert: It makes your hair stand up!) Crafty kids might also like MADE for Kids in the Delmar Maker District. Created by The Magic House, the 7,000-square-foot makerspace features an immersive makers workshop, artists studio, design lab and entrepreneurs marketplace where kids can use their imaginations to tinker, create, invent, explore and discover.

Spanning time, place, culture and media, the Saint Louis Art Museum boasts one of the country’s leading comprehensive collections. Artworks by Max Beckmann, Georgia O’Keeffe, Norman Lewis, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and Kehinde Wiley stand out, and the museum also offers thought-provoking temporary exhibitions ranging from native art to French landscapes and global textiles to ancient armor. “The stories that art tells help us reflect on our history, better understand our present and inform our future, so we must ask what stories we want to tell,” director Min Jung Kim explains. “Then, we begin to identify exhibitions that have a particular appeal for our audience. Increasingly, we want to find new ways to activate the masterpieces in our collection so that they can become connection points of relevance and resonance for the St. Louis community.”

Without a permanent collection, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation is constantly evolving, providing dynamic art experiences in a unique environment designed by acclaimed architect Tadao Ando. Meant to encourage contemplation, the building is as much a part of the experience of visiting the Pulitzer as the art it houses. “Not having a permanent collection allows us to be very ambitious and expansive,” curator Tamara Schenkenberg says. “The opportunities at the Pulitzer are so vast, and it’s exciting to be able to work across space and time.” Enhancing any visit to the museum, Park-Like, a garden across the street, offers a beautiful place to spend a quiet moment among hundreds of plants.

More than a Roman Catholic Church, the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis is a distinguished work of art. With its lofty vaults and radiant mosaics, the sheer scale of the building’s beauty is awe-inspiring. In its creation, more than a dozen architects’ and artisans’ concepts coalesced into a magnificently well-integrated and harmonious whole, and in 2023, a transformative lighting design project illuminated the interior, brightening the mosaics made of more than 30 million tesserae, artworks and architecture that visitors couldn’t previously see in such detail. An interpretive approach was also used to highlight the cathedral’s marble statues, drawing attention to elements that tell its story. Fun fact: The Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis houses the largest collection of mosaics in the world outside Russia, and in the basement, the Mosaic Museum uses depictions of the design and installation to explain how they were created.

Founded in the 1850s as a small neighborhood brewery, Anheuser-Busch quickly transformed from a local fixture into a national presence. Today, it serves as a hub for brewing innovation, using the highest-quality ingredients grown by American farmers to produce umpteen brands of beer, including Budweiser. Known as the King of Beers, Budweiser is brewed using a distinctive beechwood aging process that imparts smoothness and complexity to its flavor profile. St. Louis is home to the titan’s flagship brewery, which operates out of elaborate, red-brick buildings. Hop on a tour for a glimpse inside them! Each tour explains the life of an Anheuser-Busch beer from seed to glass – the Finisher Tour will even give you a taste of beer straight from the finishing cellars – and they end at the Anheuser-Busch Biergarten where you can enjoy a cold one on the house.

Blueberry Hill opened in the Delmar Loop in 1972, as a welcoming hangout with music, food and pop culture memorabilia, including collections of vintage Pez dispensers, Wurlitzer jukeboxes, Howdy Doody toys and Chuck Berry artifacts. Chuck Berry – the first person inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame – was a good friend of owner Joe Edwards, and after Berry inaugurated the Duck Room – the legendary live music club that opened inside Blueberry Hill in 1997 – he also played here once a month in an unforgettable concert series. “People traveled from around the world to see Chuck Berry perform at the Duck Room,” Edwards says. “The venue only holds 340 people, so it’s intimate. When you’re sitting in your seat, you can see his eyes, he can see yours, and every month, he would just kick it. He played 209 consecutive months, and he loved every moment.” Time your visit to coincide with a show at the Duck Room. Performances happen several nights a week, and tickets typically range from $10 to $25.