It was at that time in the path of Hurricane Harvey, which ultimately took a turn towards Houston as we all now know, I was debating whether or not I should even attempt to visit the city. Houston is a 3 hour drive.My recent visit to San Antonio began with not knowing if I was even going to be able to go. Since you'll be there for awhile, you can also explore Austin, which is an hour away and my friends say has more of a gay scene. If you get desperately bored, there's always Sea World.
The Market Square has some interesting shops and is open daily. Food is better and cheaper in areas geared to locals. The restaurants and bars tend to be overpriced chains. The River Walk is pretty for a nice stroll after dark or early in the morning, too hot during the day. The San Antonio Missions: There are 5 (I went to 4, the ones accessible by bus), they've very unique and historical and not overrun with tourists like the The Alamo. Bring a big bottle of water wherever you go. Having never been to Texas, I was pleasantly surprised by the area.
There was no obvious gay scene, but there's is a lot to do for a temporary visitor. I was there for a work conference last summer. But my information is old, I haven't been back to San Antonio in a long time. It was called The Executive Club or something stupid like that. Half the cars in the parking lot are SUVs with child-seats in the back seat. There's one bath house, and if it's anything like I remember, it's really lame. If you're into roller-coasters, both SeaWorld and SixFlags have some really good ones. Yeah, it's cheesy, but everyone needs to do it once.Ĭhacho's Mexican food (I think there's a couple of them, the one I knew was also near 410 and I10) is awesome. Worth it to take the touristy boat-ride for the tour. It can be very pretty, and it's usually a good 10 degrees cooler down there than at street level. Some very good restaurants there (and some touristy lame restaurants charging premium prices too, choose carefully). Have yourself a Chester's Green Chili Cheeseburger (410 and I10 northwest). If there is a gay scene, it wasn't in that area. I spent most of my time by the Riverwalk Area or Market Square. Went to the National Museum of the Pacific War which was kind of cool if you're into military history.ġ0 days there seems like a really long time. I ate at one and it was basically a diner that happened to have schnitzel and sauerbraten on the menu. Fredericksburg is a small touristy town settled by Germans so there are a few German restaurants.
On my free day, I did a tour to see the LBJ Ranch and then to the town of Fredericksburg. The Japanese Sunken Garden was nice, but after 15-20 minutes, you've seen it. not very touristy, but bigger, kind of like how I thought the Alamo would be. Some of the folks at the conference rented a car and I tagged along and saw a few of the old missions (Concepcion and San Jose, I think). San Antonio is just a huge flat sprawling city. Went to the top of the Tower of the Americas. A couple of nice places to eat and have a drink though. The Riverwalk is narrow and there aren't any railings along the water. The Alamo isn't as big as you would think and is very, very crowded. I went a couple of years for a conference.