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RVcrazy's avatar
RVcrazy
Explorer
Jan 31, 2019

San Antonio

How long would you plan on visiting here? What are your top picks? We are considering commuting from Johnson City instead of relocating. What do you think? Thanks!

18 Replies

  • I continually hear people bad talking the Alamo. (It's so small, It isn't interesting, etc.) If you appreciate history, you will enjoy it. The fact that it isn't interpreted like a Disney Theme park ride is a good thing in my mind. The fact that it is small makes the efforts of those defending the mission all the more remarkable.

    Be sure to travel the mission trail and visit the other missions. We used the rent-a-bike kiosks and biked all along the river to the several missions. It made for a great day of history, exercise, site seeing and adventure.

    The River walk is OK, but also get up on the main street level and experience some of the shops and history of the area there as well. There is plenty to see, and you can spend several days doing it.
  • If you commute from Johnson City that is on US281 expect heavy traffic to downtown from early am to mid morning and again the reverse in the afternoon starting around 3PM. Since most of the places of interest are in the center of the city(Alamo, Riverwalk, El Mercado) and south of downtown (Missions, bike trails), IMO I recommend staying closer to downtown. I live here so I don't have much experience in picking an appropriate RV Park. Have a great trip.
  • If you go in the summer there is river floating (an all day event) and anytime there are surrounding cities that are great to camp and visit.
  • If you like history, the mission trail is wonderful. There are five missions on the trail, all preserved quite well. They aren't very far apart, plan to see them all. The Alamo is one but it's the only one in town.

    You can go here to see more: Mission Trail

    or here: San Antonio Missions
  • We spent five nights in October and that was about right for us. Much of what we did was south of the city so we did not have to spend a lot of time driving. We took our bikes and did the three Missions south of us and we drove up to the mission closer to town. We did the River Walk (not impressed) and did the boat ride (city needs to seriously clean the river) the restaurants in the River Walk area are all tourist oriented. We visited the Alamo and toured the area around it. We met up with friends so we did not have time to go to the Mexican Market or the Buckhorn Hall of Fame.
  • We were there a couple years ago, stop on our way back to the north. I found the Riverwalk to be over rated, maybe bad time of the year. The boat ride through it was ok. There are also a lot of shops and restaurants along the walk.

    We had the best time at the drive thru wild animal park north of San Antonio. https://wildliferanchtexas.com/ you could drive through as many times as you like in a day. I would go back to it.
  • Speaking as a casual visitor with no deep knowledge of the area. In the downtown there is the Riverwalk, which was somewhat rundown when we were there last and the Alamo. The Alamo is much smaller than you imagine it to be. One day will do both. There is also a Mission in that area which we have not visited and some other missions in the area if you are interested in them.

    There is a SeaWorld there too which we visited with our son when he graduated from USAF boot camp, I'm not a Sea World aficionado but it seemed to be about the same as the one in Orlando.

    I'm sure there are more things to see but we didn't.

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