San Antonio travel guide

Top 10 sights in San Antonio

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

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   1© Zygmunt Put Zetpe0202 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Alamo Mission

   A Spanish mission of 1718, later fortified, where about two hundred Texian defenders were killed by Santa Anna's army over thirteen days in 1836 — the defeat that became the Texan founding story. Only the chapel and the long barrack survive of a much larger compound.

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2. 

   2© Larry D. Moore · CC BY 4.0

   Tower of the Americas

   A 229-metre observation tower built for the 1968 HemisFair, with a revolving restaurant and an open deck. It was the tallest observation tower in the United States until the Las Vegas Stratosphere passed it in 1996.

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3. 

   3© Daniel Schwen · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Cathedral of San Fernando

   The cathedral of San Antonio, whose oldest walls date from 1738, making it one of the oldest cathedral sanctuaries in the United States. Santa Anna raised the no-quarter flag from its tower in 1836; remains believed to be the Alamo defenders' are entombed inside.

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   4© Billy Hathorn · CC BY-SA 3.0

   San Antonio Zoo

   A zoo of twenty-three hectares in Brackenridge Park, laid out from 1914 in an abandoned limestone quarry whose walls serve as enclosure boundaries. Its bird collection is among the largest in the country.

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   5© Liveon001 ©Travis Witt · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Mission Concepcion

   A Franciscan mission church completed in 1755, and the oldest unrestored stone church in the United States — the roof has never needed replacing. Traces of the original painted frescoes survive inside, and it is part of the World Heritage listing of 2015.

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   6© Zereshk · CC BY 3.0

   Basilica of the National Shrine of the Little Flower

   A basilica in San Antonio dedicated to Thérèse of Lisieux, and reckoned the first church in the world consecrated to her, built in 1931 by Discalced Carmelites who raised the money in small donations during the Depression.

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7. 

   7© Liveon001 © Travis K.Witt · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Mission San Francisco de la Espada

   A Spanish mission founded in 1690 in east Texas and moved here in 1731, whose church front carries an unusual Moorish arched doorway assembled from mismatched stones. It is still an active parish, as all the San Antonio missions except the Alamo are.

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8. 

   8© Liveon001 © Travis K.Witt · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Mission San Juan Capistrano

   A mission founded in 1731 on the east bank of the San Antonio river, whose bell wall — a wall pierced with openings for the bells rather than a tower — is its distinguishing feature. Its Spanish irrigation ditch still carries water to demonstration fields.

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9. 

   9© Zereshk · CC BY-SA 3.0

   McNay Art Museum

   The first museum of modern art in Texas, opened in 1954 in the Spanish Colonial Revival house of the oil heiress Marion Koogler McNay, who left her collection and her home for it. Cézanne, Gauguin and O'Keeffe hang in her rooms, and the theatre arts collection is one of the largest in the country.

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10. 

    10© Zereshk · CC BY-SA 3.0

    San Antonio Museum of Art

    An art museum in the converted Lone Star Brewery on the river, whose 5,000-year span is anchored by the largest ancient Mediterranean collection in the southern United States and a Latin American wing of about 12,000 objects.

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1. 

   1© Copyright 2010 R.C. French Photography · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Morgan's Wonderland

   A theme park opened in 2010 and designed from the start so that people with disabilities can use every ride, built by a father for his daughter Morgan. Admission is free for guests with special needs; it is described as the first fully inclusive park of its kind.

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   Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery

   A national cemetery at Fort Sam Houston holding over 160,000 graves, with burials brought in from frontier army posts across the southwest. It was listed on the National Register in 2016.

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3. 

   3© Liveon001 ©Travis Witt · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Mission San José

   The largest and best preserved of the San Antonio missions, founded in 1720 and known as the queen of the missions, with its granary, mill and Indian quarters inside the walls. The carved limestone portal and the Rose Window are the finest Spanish colonial sculpture in the United States.

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   4© Lonelysoulq (talk) · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Steel Eel

   A steel hypercoaster at SeaWorld San Antonio, opened in 1999, built by D. H. Morgan with a 45-metre first drop into a tunnel and long stretches of near-weightless airtime. It was the tallest coaster in Texas when it opened.

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   5© Larry D. Moore · CC BY 4.0

   Institute of Texan Cultures

   A museum and library of the University of Texas at San Antonio, in the Texas pavilion of the 1968 HemisFair, covering the twenty-six or so ethnic groups that settled the state. A dome show and reconstructed dwellings tell the immigration story.

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   6© Zereshk · CC BY 2.5

   San Antonio Botanical Garden

   The city's official botanical garden, seventeen hectares laid out in 1980 with sections for Texas's dry country, hill country and east Texas pine woods. Emilio Ambasz's conservatory of glass cones set partly below ground is its landmark.

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   7© Martin Lewison · CC BY-SA 2.0

   The Great White

   An inverted roller coaster at SeaWorld San Antonio, opened in 1997, the first coaster built at any SeaWorld park and the first inverted coaster in Texas. Riders hang below the track with their legs free through four inversions.

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   St. Joseph Catholic Church

   A Catholic parish church downtown built in 1868 by German immigrants, whose congregation refused to sell when a department store went up around it — so the store was built on three sides of the church. It is known as St Joske's for that reason.

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9. 

   9© Billy Hathorn · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Witte Museum

   A museum in Brackenridge Park, founded in 1926, on Texas from prehistory to the present, with the Lower Pecos rock art replicas and dinosaur halls as its core. It sits on the river beside the zoo and the Japanese Tea Garden.

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    10© Nima Kasraie (Zereshk on en.wikipedia) · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Bexar County Courthouse

    The county courthouse of 1896 in red Texas granite and sandstone, the largest historic courthouse still in use in the state. Its Romanesque Revival towers were partly removed in the 1920s and restored in the 2010s.

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