A little over five hours and right at three-hundred miles away form Chicago is St. Louis, Missouri. My extended family lives there, and I went down there for Thanksgiving recently. However, this is a great city to get away to when you’re in graduate school. Here are some awesome places to visit and things to do if you can get there:

1) St. Louis Cardinals Game

The Cards won the World Series in 2011. Though they are huge rivals of the Cubs (something my family always mentions to me now that I live in Chicago), they are a great team with a storied past. Seeing a game at Busch Stadium in the late spring to early fall is a great thing to do in the city.

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2) Anheuser-Busch Brewery Tour

This tour is AWESOME. I went on it with my family before I came back to Chicago after Thanksgiving. Though this isn’t my favorite beer in the world, the brewers and tour guides here take their beer very seriously. They sell the most sold beer product in the world (Bud Light), and they explain how it’s made and the importance of the quality of the ingredients, even down to the water used in the beer. The tour takes about two hours, and it starts with seeing the iconic AB Clydesdale horses.

3) Gateway Arch

Symbolizing westward expansion past the Mississippi River, the arch is a marvelous feat of architecture. It is the tallest memorial in the U.S. and is over 600 feet tall. Visitors can travel to the top and take in all of the city below them. It is pretty fantastic. When I was a kid, I always made my family go to the top when we visited the city. I still try to find excuses to go to the top when I’m in St. Louis.

4) The Pageant

Located in the hip Loop area of St. Louis, this is a great concert venue. The acoustics are amazing, and when I’m in the city, I look to see if there is a show there. In 2004, my best friend and I drove from Atlanta to St. Louis and stayed with my family just so we could see Damien Rice at the Pageant.

I love traveling, and I think it keeps me sane through graduate school. If you can swing it as a grad student, take a weekend here and there to visit a new city. St. Louis is a great one. :-)

What do you think? Add to my margins!