A stone’s throw from the hotel, Forest Park is one of America’s great urban green spaces and has several first-rate, free cultural institutions. Walking around the park is also highly encouraged; marvel at the Grand Basin fountains, run the many trails, or hike the Kennedy Forest, managed by Kieran’s ecologist brother Liam (ask Liam for some stories from working there!)

A top tier collection spanning from the ancient to the modern. The museum’s Impressionists are, of course, worth seeing, but the collection of interwar German painters and postwar German modernists are particularly noteworthy. See if you can spot two of Kieran’s favorite pieces, a giant painting of the sinking of the Titanic and an Aztec clay figurine of a charmingly fat dog (in the basement). And it’s free!

Often voted the nation’s top zoo (in part because it’s free, yes, free!), this has everything you’d expect in a zoo. Some unique features: an underwater walkway beneath the seals, the fantastic penguin house (don’t touch them, however close they may be), an insectarium with some huge creepy-crawlies and a stunning butterfly house. Also, baby African elephant Jet and baby orangutan Forest! Kieran and Sabrina also strongly recommend seeing the bird house, with such gems as the Luzon Bleeding Heart Dove (a Sabrina favorite!).

An important part of St. Louis culture is that when we’re driving around St. Louis and we see the Arch, we say “there’s the Arch.” And in addition to pointing at it, you can also go up it in tiny capsules that look like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and gaze out for dozens of miles in all directions. Highly recommend watching “Monument to the Dream,” the short documentary that plays in the underground museum showing the death-defying laborers who built the Arch. Not for the acrophobic!

If you haven’t been there, it’s hard to really describe it in words that would prepare someone. It’s a giant homemade post-industrial playground for people of all ages, full of weird cafes, a creepy circus, bizarre water fixtures, and dizzying wire-framed tunnels. It’s kind of amazing that they don’t have you sign waivers to use it. Bonus points if you can find the Tunnel of Glove in the Crystal Caves.

The only UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the Midwest, Cahokia was the largest city north of Mexico and home to a remarkable Indigenous civilization that is still poorly-understood and poorly remembered (evidenced by the decision to place a very large landfill across the highway from the largest of the mounds.) Also home to a museum that I have not visited in many years but is likely very interesting.

Just a few blocks from Kieran’s childhood home, it’s one of the nation’s best. Even in the colder months, the Japanese garden is lovely, and the giant Space Age geodesic dome (memorably named the Climatron) contains a stunning tropical forest with various tropical birds and frogs. Also see the Arid House (recently redesigned by a classmate of Kieran’s) and the gorgeous Victorian-era Sachs Museum.

Twin museums, both free, with rotating exhibits from big names in modern art, street art, and conceptual art. You might not always understand it, but it’ll make you think about it.