Forest Park: The Complete Visitor's Guide (From Someone Who Has A Rooftop View)

Most people know Central Park. Fewer know that St. Louis has a park that’s bigger, and in 2026, for the third time in five years, USA Today readers named it the best city park in the entire country.

Forest Park covers 1,300 acres, has 30 miles of trails, receives 15.5 million visits a year, and has five major cultural institutions inside it. Every one of them is free: The Saint Louis Zoo, Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri History Museum, Saint Louis Science Center, and The Muny, the oldest outdoor musical theater in America. In a world where everything is getting more expensive, this park is almost absurdly generous.

Famous because it hosted both the 1904 World’s Fair and the Summer Olympics in the same year. The Art Museum in the park was originally the World’s Fair Palace of Fine Arts. The History Museum holds more artifacts from the 1904 World’s Fair than any place on earth and way more than our own World’s Fair Suite!

Getting There

Forest Park is 1.5 miles north of Gothic Heights Inn on Hampton Avenue, a quick 5-minute drive or rideshare. Parking inside the park is free. The lots off Skinker Boulevard on the east side tend to fill fastest on weekends. The lot near the zoo on Government Drive is a reliable option if you’re starting there. On weekday mornings you’ll have your pick. We would generally avoid approaching from the east because of the traffic from the Central West End and Barnes Jewish Hospital.

The Metrolink red line stops at Forest Park-DeBaliviere station on the north end of the park, near the History Museum. If you’re coming from downtown or the airport it’s the easiest option and drops you right at the museum cluster.

The Saint Louis Zoo

The Saint Louis Zoo is free. Not free with a suggested donation, not free for kids under five, it’s free for everyone, every day, because St. Louis residents voted in 1916 to fund it through a public tax. That decision made it the first publicly supported zoo in the world, and it has remained one of the best on earth ever since. USA Today named it the top zoo in the country in both 2017 and 2018.

18,700 animals across 603 species on 90 acres. Plan for at least three hours.

Big Cat Country is the standout for most visitors. Lions, tigers, leopards, and cheetahs in large open habitats. River’s Edge takes you through four continental ecosystems, including African bush elephants and hippos. Penguin and Puffin Coast is reliably popular, reliably cold inside and reliably smelly (but one of our personal favorites!). McDonnell Polar Bear Point is worth a stop if the bears are active.

The zoo traces its origins directly to the 1904 World’s Fair. The flight cage from that fair was purchased for $3,500 rather than dismantled, and it became the seed of what the zoo is today. The same fair that the Missouri History Museum commemorates just down the road.

Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM)

While the Zoo is one of the big draws to Forest Park, the Saint Louis Art Museum is the one that surprises people the most.

It’s free. Completely free, like the zoo, funded by the same public tax district. The building itself was Cass Gilbert’s Palace of Fine Arts from the 1904 World’s Fair, sitting at the top of Art Hill with a view over the Grand Basin that’s worth the visit on its own. A major expansion in 2013 added 224,000 square feet of gallery space, what you’re walking into today is one of the best art museums in the country.

The collection runs to 34,000 objects from antiquity to the present: Monet, Matisse, Van Gogh, Picasso, Egyptian mummies, ancient Mesoamerican artifacts, African and Oceanic collections. The museum holds the world’s largest collection of Max Beckmann and the largest U.S. collection of George Caleb Bingham. It’s the kind of place where you go for an hour and come out three hours later.

Art Hill is worth its own paragraph. The slope faces north over the Grand Basin, and in any season it’s one of the best views in the city. In winter it becomes a free sledding hill — chaotic, beloved, every St. Louis kid knows it. In fall the foliage is stunning. In summer there are picnics on the slope and outdoor movie nights. It’s one of those places where you go to look at art and end up just sitting outside for an hour.

Missouri History Museum

The Missouri History Museum is the third free museum in Forest Park, and it’s the one with the most direct connection to Gothic Heights Inn.

The building was constructed in 1913 with profits from the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, the same World’s Fair that inspired our Worlds Fair Suite on the second floor of Gothic Heights Inn. The 1904 exhibit inside is the crown jewel of the collection: artifacts, photographs, maps, and objects from an event that drew 20 million visitors to this neighborhood and put St. Louis on the world stage. Walking through it feels personal when you’re staying in a room named for it.

The World’s Fair is only part of it. St. Louis was the launching point for the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and the museum holds a serious collection of materials from that journey. There’s a full replica of the Spirit of St. Louis, Charles Lindbergh’s famous plane, because Lindbergh was a St. Louis man and this city funded the flight. The collection runs from Missouri’s colonial period through Native American history to the present, and it does it well.

This is also a great place to visit on a rainy afternoon. It’s quieter than the zoo, the galleries are unhurried, and the 2000 Emerson Center addition, with its floor-to-ceiling glass facade, is beautiful inside even when the weather outside isn’t.

The Boathouse

The Boathouse sits on Post-Dispatch Lake and is one of the more pleasant spots in the park to slow down for an hour. Boating has been a Forest Park activity since the park opened in 1876, and rentals are still available through Paddle Forest Park on the north side of the lake — canoes, kayaks, stand-up paddleboards, and bikes.

As of 2026, the restaurant is undergoing a significant renovation expected to wrap up in fall 2026. When it reopens, it’ll have an expanded patio, an outdoor bar and bandstand, a fire pit, a permanent events pavilion, and a redesigned dining room with better lake views. It’s going to be a great spot. In the meantime, a pop-up Beer and Wine Garden operates daily from 11am to 6pm with a small menu, snacks, and beverages. Perfectly adequate for a midday break on the water.

Park at the Visitor Center lot if you’re heading there, and note the operation is cashless.

The Muny

While the Fox Theatre is one of our favorite places to see a show all year round, The Muny is something special and from June to August it’s THE place to see a broadway show.

It opened in 1917, built in 49 days as the first municipally owned outdoor theater in the country. It seats 11,000 people under the sky in Forest Park and runs seven Broadway-caliber musicals every summer from mid-June through mid-August. Going to The Muny on a warm St. Louis evening is one of those experiences that’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t done it. It’s become a summer tradition for our family, and we end up there multiple times every season.

The last nine rows, about 1,500 seats, are always free. First come, first served. Show up early, bring a blanket and something to eat, and you’ve got a full Broadway production under the stars at no cost. If you’re visiting in summer, this is the thing we’d most want you to know about.

And while it does seat 11,000 people, ticketed can sell out fast for popular shows. Check the schedule at muny.org before you arrive and book ahead if there’s something on the bill you want to see.

The Jewel Box

If you have any appreciation for Art Deco design, the Jewel Box is worth a stop. You’ll notice echoes of it at Gothic Heights Inn in the stained glass and the Art Deco lamps Jesse has placed throughout the building. The Jewel Box is the purest expression of that aesthetic anywhere in St. Louis.

The conservatory was designed by William C. E. Becker and dedicated in 1936, built with Public Works Administration support during the Depression. The construction was genuinely innovative: more than 16,000 square feet of plate glass set in five stepped tiers with cantilevered glass panels supported by arched steel beams. In 1938 a hailstorm shattered a thousand panes of glass in Forest Park’s other greenhouses. The Jewel Box lost not one. The name came earlier, from a visitor in 1926 who thought the floral arrangements looked like jewelry in a case. It stuck.

A $3.5 million restoration in 2002 transformed the interior into the open, sunlit space you’ll find today. The Flora Conservancy of Forest Park maintains the floral displays, which change with the seasons. We know it as a wedding venue as much as anything else. Our family has celebrated here more than once, and it’s hard to imagine a more beautiful setting for it. On a quiet weekday morning when it’s just you and the flowers, it’s one of the most peaceful spots in the entire park.

Best Times to Visit

The park is worth visiting any time of year, but certain seasons and events make it exceptional.

Spring is when the park is at its most beautiful. The St. Louis Shakespeare Festival takes over the Great Lawn in May and June with free performances. The Jewel Box is in full bloom. The weather is reliably pleasant before the summer heat settles in.

Summer is the full-schedule season. The Muny runs mid-June through mid-August. Fourth of July brings fireworks. Free concerts pop up on Art Hill. The park is busy but it earns it.

September is when the park hosts its most spectacular annual event.

The Great Forest Park Balloon Race has run every September since 1973 and is the most attended single-day hot air balloon race in the United States. About 130,000 spectators, 70 balloons, and a 166-foot pink bunny balloon that the pilots chase and try to land closest to. Balloons touch down wherever the wind takes them: backyards, baseball diamonds, golf courses, street intersections. The Library of Congress honored it in 2000 as an American folk tradition.

The Balloon Glow is the night before the race and is something special. The balloons are inflated on the field after dark and lit up by their burners. If you can score an invite to one of the cookout parties you’re golden, otherwise you can picnic or simply show up and walk among them. For something truley unique, book a room at our Inn and on the morning of the race, from the rooftop of our bell tower, you can watch the entire fleet launch and drift across the St. Louis skyline. Race week also includes a free St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concert on Art Hill and a fireworks display.

Fall brings the best foliage in the park, particularly on Art Hill. Crowds thin after summer, the museums are spacious, and the park feels different from any other time of year.

Winter is quieter but not empty. Art Hill turns into a sledding hill after snowfall. The Steinberg Skating Rink opens with rentals available. Holiday lights go up around the park. The museums are at their least crowded. The Zoo has a Zoo Lights event that our whole family enjoys.

Tips From the Neighborhood

A few things worth knowing before you go.

The park is big. Pick your day. 1,300 acres with five museums, 30 miles of trails, and a full event calendar is not a single morning. Pick two or three things and do them well. Trying to hit the zoo, SLAM, the History Museum, and the Boathouse in one visit means rushing all of them.

Go early at the zoo on weekends. The zoo opens at 8am and the parking lots on Government Drive are manageable before 10. After noon on a summer Saturday it gets crowded and hot. The animals are more active in the morning anyway.

The park sits next to two great neighborhoods. Gothic Heights Inn is in Clifton Heights, directly south of the park, one of St. Louis’s most charming residential neighborhoods and a great base for exploring. The Hill, St. Louis’s historic Italian-American neighborhood, is minutes away and has some of the best restaurants in the city. After a day in the park, dinner on The Hill is the move.

Bring water in summer. Parts of the park, especially the open stretch between the zoo and the Art Museum, have limited shade. The concession options inside are adequate but not exciting.

Free WiFi is available at the Visitor and Education Center, the Zoo, the Art Museum, and the History Museum. Useful when you realize the History Museum is further from the zoo than it looks on paper.