Day 6: San Antonio

80 Miles

We arrived in San Antonio around lunch time and almost immediately fell in love. Our River District hotel, The Hyatt Regency, was beautiful and perfectly positioned: Out the front door and practically across the street was the Alamo Plaza. Out the back was the River Walk.

Our first stop, naturally, was the Alamo. Though guided tours are available, entrance to the Alamo grounds and to the Mission is free. (The building everyone thinks of when they hear “Alamo” is actually the mission church, not the fort.) We walked the beautifully manicured gardens, went to the gift shop, read the history boards, and visited a small “Living History Encampment” all before lunch. We returned after lunch (Johnny Rockets) to tour the Mission building and learn its history. We went through the gardens a bit more before returning to the hotel for a break.

Had we been so inclined, both a Guinness World Records Museum and a Ripley’s Believe it or Not! were right in the same area. Instead, we opted to hit the River Walk.

It’s hard to describe how beautiful this area is. It almost seems like a theme park. Businesses of all kinds (but mostly restaurants) line both banks of the river, which is dotted with magnificent, mature cypress trees and flowering plants. An occasional bridge allows you to move from one bank to the other as tourist-filled boats pass beneath you. Markers and plaques explain the history of the area and its special features. We ate a fabulous meal at a place called Iron Cactus on the advice of a friend. There was about a thirty-minute wait, but they text you and give you ten minutes to claim your table, so you’re able to walk around and explore the area some while you wait to be seated.

For us, the comparison between San Antonio and Austin was stark. Where Austin had the exciting weekend nightlife of a big city, it was clearly more adult-oriented (or at least college-oriented) and less family-friendly. Both places required us to pay $32 per night for parking, but the staff at the Hyatt was much more laid back and friendly (the Omni employees in Austin almost acted as if it was our privilege to stay with them). The Hyatt in San Antonio was in a better neighborhood than the Omni in Austin, and it cost fifteen percent less per night. Also, WiFi was included at the Hyatt, but cost a ridiculous $15 per night (with a limited number of devices allowed) at the Omni in Austin. 

San Antonio is the seventh most populous city in the U.S., with about 1.5 million residents. Nearly 1 in 5 people in the city live in poverty, so we clearly had a tourist’s view of the place, but if we had it to do over, we’d have spent two nights in San Antonio and simply taken a day trip to Austin.

Unfortunately, it was planned for one night, so the next morning, we began our long trip to Carlsbad, New Mexico.