Gateway Arch National Park

The one feature here that predates the city and is not a built object. The cobblestone levee below the Arch is the working St. Louis riverfront, where barge tows still run the channel and the one-hour sightseeing cruise departs. To the Niutachi this is the river mouth, and the Osage trade artery; the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi sits about 15 miles upstream, and Cahokia, the largest pre-Columbian city north of Mexico, stood across this water. The free, no-ticket view looks straight up the full catenary curve.

91 acres with about 5 miles of paved pathways and two serpentine reflecting ponds, designed by landscape architect Dan Kiley as part of the original Saarinen plan and rebuilt in the 2018 CityArchRiver project to capture stormwater on site. The grounds are open daily from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. and are free. Flat and stroller-friendly, this is the easiest place in the park to let kids run, with the Arch overhead the whole time.

Part of the park, but separated from the Arch grounds by Interstate 44 and connected to them by the 280-foot Park Over the Highway land bridge built in 2018. This is where Dred and Harriet Scott's suit for freedom was first tried, in 1847 and 1850. It reopened on May 3, 2025 after a $27.5 million renovation, with new galleries on the Scotts, on slavery and Black life in St. Louis, and on the long civil-rights fight. Free admission. This is the hard, necessary conversation with kids, and the new exhibits carry it.

Not part of the national park, but the single best way to put the Arch's westward-expansion story in its real context: a city stood here first. About 8 miles east across the Mississippi in Collinsville, Illinois, Cahokia was the center of Mississippian civilization, the largest city north of Mexico before about 1350, with a peak population in the tens of thousands. Monks Mound is the largest earthwork in the Americas, roughly 100 feet tall on a base larger than the Great Pyramid's. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, ancestral to many present-day nations of the region. The grounds are free.

The park has no lodging and no campground; visitors stay downtown. The MetroLink light-rail Arch-Laclede's Landing station puts the grounds within a short walk, so a hotel near any downtown MetroLink stop reaches the park without the parking garage or the one-way grid. The image is the lit Arch in the downtown skyline at night, the transit-and-lodging story rather than any one property.

The viewpoint the whole trip turns on, and a paid, ticketed ride. The Arch stands 630 feet tall and 630 feet wide at the base, the tallest monument in the United States. The observation deck holds about 160 people, with small windows angled down toward the river and the city; on a clear day the view reaches about 30 miles. It is reached only by the tram up the inside of the Arch leg. There is no camping anywhere in this park.

The only food on the grounds is the cafe in the underground visitor center: coffee, sandwiches, and snacks, free to enter, useful for a quick refuel between the Museum and the tram, but not a meal worth planning around. The St. Louis kid institution is Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, a walk-up stand running since 1930 at 6726 Chippewa Street on old Route 66, about 6 miles southwest. The "concrete" is so thick it is served upside down. Pack water and snacks for the grounds either way, since on-site options are limited.

The defining experience, and the one to decide on first. The capsules hold 5 people, knees nearly touching, in a curved pod that ratchets up the inside of the Arch leg; the full round trip runs about 45 to 60 minutes including the pre-boarding film. The tram-to-the-top ticket runs roughly $39 to $43 adult and $25 to $29 youth (ages 3 to 15) as of 2026, with timed entry and prices that vary by date; book ahead at gatewayarch.com, since same-day slots sell out by midday in summer. The pod is small enough that anyone prone to claustrophobia should skip it.

The free underground museum, redesigned in 2018, with six thematic galleries on the Louisiana Purchase, the river city, and the U.S. push west. The interactive exhibits suit elementary-age kids, and the Native Voices and Lewis and Clark sections are stronger and more current than the older 1970s westward-expansion framing. Pair it with the Old Courthouse for the fuller, harder story the Arch's own galleries cannot tell on their own.

A 7.5-acre section at the north end of the grounds with a grass amphitheater used for concerts and a raised children's walkway, the Lewis and Clark Explorers' Garden, with sight lines to the Eads Bridge (1874) and the river. It is the closest thing the park has to a run-in-the-grass zone for kids, and the non-claustrophobic alternative for anyone skipping the tram. A Mississippi sightseeing cruise aboard the Tom Sawyer riverboat leaves the levee nearby, a one-hour narrated loop that puts the Arch back in its river context.