11 Days In St Louis: Here’s What We Did

Last month Shae wrote a post sharing more about our plans once we finish our 7 year, 50 state road trip at the end of 2024. Towards the end of that post she mentioned that we’ll likely settle somewhere for a couple of years because we don’t want to keep moving every week for a little while.

We’d already come up with a number of potential cities we might like to live in post-road trip, but we recently added another city to the list – St Louis, MO.

We spent 11 days there at the beginning of April and loved it. Part of the reason we enjoyed the city so much is because we got to stay downtown and so saw more of it than when we stay in the suburbs somewhere, but there’s a lot more to love about it – many free things to do, great food and more. Here’s everything we got up to during our stay.

Where We Stayed In St Louis

Hyatt Regency St. Louis At The Arch

We stayed all 11 nights at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis At The Arch. Its location was superb – it’s literally right next to Gateway Arch National Park. It’s also within walking distance of all kinds of other downtown attractions including Busch Stadium where the St Louis Cardinals play. Check out my full review of the hotel here.

What We Did In St Louis

Gateway Arch

If you visit St Louis, the quintessential thing to do is visit the Gateway Arch. It’s not just a tourist trap that you should check off your list though – it’s a fantastic piece of engineering.

You can also take a tram ride to the top of the Arch, so we’d highly recommend doing that as it’s a unique experience, plus it gives you some great views of the city. Read more about what it’s like to visit the Gateway Arch here.

Forest Park

Forest Park is a 1,300+ acre park which is about a 10 minute drive from downtown. It’s free to visit Forest Park and there are many walking trails throughout the park.

There’s a lake where you can rent pedal boats, along with all kinds of other activities that are free for visitors which includes the STL Zoo, St Louis Art Museum and more.

Laumeier Sculpture Park

Laumeier Sculpture Park is another free activity in St Louis. It has the added benefit of being pet-friendly, so Truffles was able to join us.

One of the most iconic sculptures in the park is the self-explanatorily-named Eye sculpture which was created by Tony Tasset.

Citygarden Sculpture Park

We’d visited Laumeier on Easter Sunday and went to another sculpture park afterwards – Citygarden Sculpture Park which is in downtown St Louis. As with so many other activities in St Louis, Citygarden Sculpture Park is free to visit.

It was a beautiful day and there were lots of colorful tulips in full bloom, so it made the perfect backdrop for our Easter bunny.

Citygarden had some great sculptures and I actually preferred it to Laumeier.

Ballpark Village

Shae and I didn’t watch a Cardinals game while in St Louis, but Truffles and I did walk around Ballpark Village a few times. This is a complex surrounding Busch Stadium and features hotels, bars, restaurants and more. In the middle of a roundabout next to the stadium is a 35 foot tall replica of the World Series trophy which the St Louis Cardinals have won a number of times.

General Wandering

In addition to wandering around Ballpark Village, Truffles and I enjoyed going on lots of walks around downtown St Louis. Sometimes that would be in Gateway Arch National Park, but other times we explored in random directions and came across other places like St Louis City Hall which gets lit up nicely at night time.

Where We Ate & Drank

Pappy’s Smokehouse

A BBQ joint that came recommended by a number of people was Pappy’s Smokehouse. We stopped there for lunch on our way out of town when moving on to Kansas City.

Seeing as it was a moving day, we had Truffles with us. That meant we couldn’t eat inside the restaurant, but Pappy’s has many picnic tables set up outside; you order food from the table outside in the photo above, then they bring your food over.

Shae got a beef brisket sandwich, while I ordered a two meat platter. I picked beef brisket and burnt ends, with potato salad and baked beans as my sides. It was all very good BBQ, so if we did end up living in St Louis in the future then I can foresee Pappy’s Smokehouse being somewhere we visit regularly.

Salt + Smoke Ballpark Village

On our first night in St Louis we ordered BBQ from Salt + Smoke via Uber Eats. We shared a three meat platter and chose brisket, pulled pork and burnt ends. The side of white bean chicken chili needed salt and the brisket wasn’t anything special, so I don’t think we’d make much effort to get food from here again.

Tamm Avenue Bar

Before heading to Forest Park, we stopped for lunch at Tamm Avenue Bar. Shae tried a cider from Brick River which is based in St Louis, while I tried a Fat Elvis Absence of Light from 4 Hands Brewing Co – also in St Louis. In case you’re wondering what a Fat Elvis Absence of Light entails, it’s a peanut butter chocolate milk stout. I’m not a big fan of peanut butter, but the beer was pretty good.

For lunch Shae and I shared a pastrami sandwich and got it with a side of fries. On the positive side of things, the sandwich was absolutely delicious and the fries were very good too. The downside was how ridiculously expensive it was. You don’t get a side included with a sandwich at Tamm Avenue Bar, so you have to pay for that separately. The one sandwich and the side of fries ended up costing $26 including tax and tip. The sandwich was excellent, but that’s way too expensive for how much food you get.

Pint Size Bakery

A friend recommended Pint Size Bakery, so we stopped by there one morning to try out some of their baked goods. We got a couple of oatmeal cream pies, a brookie (brownie cookie), a pink grapefruit brown sugar crumb cake, some other kind of chocolate dessert (I can’t remember exactly what it was) and a home made marshmallow peep.

The best of these was the brookie – it was incredibly rich and delicious. The oatmeal cream pies were very good too, although I’m afraid to say we still have a soft spot for store-bought Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies! The brown sugar crumb cake was nice too.

Square One Brewery

One of our readers reached out to let us know she lives in St Louis, so we met up with her at Square One Brewery (hi Beth!). We had a great time getting to know her and the beers I tried at Square One were decent too. I ordered a flight, as well as a draft Maple Stout which was my favorite thing that I tried there.

El Maguey

We met up with some friends about 1.5 hours away in Rolla, MO at El Maguey, a Mexican restaurant. I can’t remember what Shae ordered, but I got their mixed fajitas which came with chicken, steak and shrimp and was delicious.

City Winery

On one of our final nights in St Louis, Shae and I went to City Winery. It’s pricier than the normal places we’d go to eat, but I’d earned a bunch of referral credits in the inKind app thanks to this promotion I’d written about on Frequent Miler. City Winery participates in inKind’s dining program, so we went there for dinner.

We had a great time that evening. Their wine and food was excellent, as was our server Mia. We started off by ordering their St Louis Ribs which came with brussels sprouts mustard slaw along with a cheese and meat plate.

The cheese and meat plate was more for Shae and the St Louis ribs were more for me. We tried each other’s plates though and Shae loved the St Louis ribs, so she ordered her own serving and I ordered a grilled flat iron steak as my entrée.

City Winery has a number of wine selections, including three different wine flights that have pre-selected wines. Shae went for their Classic wine flight which features City Bubbles Cava, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon, while I got their Unique Reds flight which has Rose of Pinot Noir, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.

Final Thoughts

We had a lot of fun in St Louis, although there was a lot of stuff we didn’t end up having time for like the City Museum which many people had recommended. I have no doubt that we’ll return to St Louis at some point even if we don’t end up moving there.