Hotels in San Antonio

San Antonio is the most visibly Spanish and Mexican of the big Texas cities, founded in 1718 and still shaped by it. The Alamo sits in the middle of downtown, but the four less-visited missions strung south along the river, together with the Alamo forming a UNESCO World Heritage site, are arguably more rewarding and far quieter.

The River Walk is the city's other defining feature, a network of pedestrian paths a level below the streets running beside the San Antonio River, lined with restaurants and reached by stairways from downtown. It continues north to the Pearl District, a former brewery turned into the city's best food and market quarter, and south along the Mission Reach to the missions themselves.

San Antonio is a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy, and Tex-Mex here means puffy tacos and barbacoa rather than the export version. It is also considerably cheaper than Austin, 130 km north, and makes an easy base for Hill Country day trips.