An hour out in which direction? That would make quite a lot of difference in terms of lodging recommendations.

BTW, St. Louis is the confluence of 3 major highways; you *can* avoid driving on them, but the alternative routes can be fairly convoluted, depending on where you are in the Metro area. If you're only here for a weekend, completely avoiding the interstates probably would be more trouble than it is worth.

...actually, I am not sure in which direction....she is in the Air Force and taking a course at an Army Base somewhere outside of St. Louis....she will be picking me up from the airport, and we were hoping to either stay in a downtown area, or if there is a better area outside of St. Louis, like a burb, that would be ok too. Obviously, I don't want to drive 3 hours away from the airport, for convenience sake...but not knowing a thing about the area, I am in a quandary about where we should stay. Somewhere near a mall is always good!

Hmm, I don't know of any Army bases that fit that description. Scott AFB is about that distance from STL, over on the Illinois side. I could be wrong, but I think that the nearest Army post is Ft. Leonard Wood, which is nearly 3 hours to the SW.

Could it be that the facility in question is the Army Reserve Personnel Command on Page Ave.? They do a lot of continuing education couses there, but it is not outside St. Louis, it is in the suburb of Overland, which is less than 5 miles from the St. Louis airport. If that's where she will be be, then you are in St. Louis, and can visit anything in the city from whereever the USAF will have put her, though of course you could relocate for the weekend.

St. Louis is best known for family-type attractions such as our zoo and Botanical Garden. There are quite a lot of live music venues here, though country music isn't really a strong point. I could go on at length, but if the city is what you are interested in, this link will probably be very helpful:
http://www.explorestlouis.com/visitors/index.asp

Most of what is near outside St. Louis is countryside. There are some thriving wineries around here, and there is lots of hiking, fishing and canoeing, etc. We also have good leaf-peeping without the New England crowds, and you might be able to catch that at that time of year (http://www.greatriverroad.com/Fall/falIndex.htm)

Hi,

dmkujat, did you find out where your daughter will be attending school? If she will be in Scott Air Force Base, it is only about 25 minutes from downtown St. Louis (I live in Illinois, not far from Scott). While its not far from downtown, it is fairly far from the airport, which is well outside the city limits.

There is plenty to do in St. Louis for a weekend. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, St. Louis is where several major interchanges meet, so you will have to navigate at least some interstates if you want to see downtown.

If you are looking for a place to stay and she is indeed staying at Scott, you could stay at any of a number of hotels not far from Scott AFB along interstate 64. Fairview Heights and O'Fallon are both popular exits with a variety of hotels and restaurants. These would be cheaper than staying in downtown St. Louis.

Good luck!
Tracy

I travel on business to St. Louis all the time. There are two areas I like the most: Clayton and Central West End. Both have lots of small restaurants, shops, etc. I've stayed a number of times at The Danielle in Clayton. Not too expensive, small, very nice.

My husband and I really enjoyed visiting the Arch, and the Botanical Gardens. Forest Park and the Zoo are wonderful. Italian restaurants in The Hill area are very good and give you LOTS of food!

My STL co-workers seem to attend a lot of country music concerts so maybe there will be one in town the weekend you're there. The websites previously provided should be helpful in that area.