St. Louis is unusually kind to solo travellers: the city's biggest museums cost nothing, its brewery taprooms seat strangers at shared tables, and neighbourhoods like the Central West End and Soulard are dense, lit and easy to walk alone after dark.
Forest Park covers 1,326 acres — larger than Central Park — and its paved 5.6-mile Loop Trail is busy with runners, cyclists and dog walkers from dawn. Free and open 6am-10pm daily. Start at the Grand Basin below Art Hill for the classic view.
A bike shop and cafe in one, inside the Forest Park Visitor Center. Counter seating, sandwiches and coffee for $6-12, and staff used to fielding questions from people travelling alone. Open daily from 8am, closing around 5pm.
Free general admission, seven days a week, in Cass Gilbert's 1904 World's Fair Palace of Fine Arts atop Art Hill. Strong German Expressionist and Ancient American collections. Open 10am-5pm, Fridays until 9pm; closed Mondays.
The safest and most walkable evening neighbourhood for solo travellers: gaslamp streets, pavement terraces and a private security patrol. Bar Les Freres, Sasha's on Shaw and Herbie's all have proper bar seating where eating alone is normal.
Operating since 1779, this is the oldest market west of the Mississippi. Vendors under open-air sheds sell produce, spices and hot breakfast for a few dollars. Open Wednesday-Saturday, roughly 7am-5pm; Saturday is the busiest and friendliest.
A neighbourhood English-style brewpub with long communal tables, a beer garden and no televisions — deliberately built for talking. Pints around $6. Locals bring dogs and board games; sitting alone at the bar reads as an invitation here.
Henry Shaw's 1868 Victorian walking park, 289 acres of ruins, pavilions and a wading pool, framed by one of the most diverse neighbourhoods in the city. Free, open 6am-10pm. Sunday brings a farmers market and pick-up football games.
A three-storey blues club at 700 South Broadway, in business since 1978, with live music seven nights a week and a $5-10 cover. Bar stools face the stage, gumbo runs about $10, and the crowd skews regulars who talk to strangers.
Founded 1859, the oldest continuously operating botanical garden in the United States: 79 acres including the Climatron geodesic dome and a 14-acre Japanese garden. Admission $16 for adults, open 9am-5pm daily. Quiet and easy to wander alone.
An Art Deco ice cream parlour and lunch spot in Midtown, built inside a 1916 auto showroom. Sandwiches and salads $10-16, ice cream martinis $9. The horseshoe counter means solo diners face the room rather than a wall.
A ten-storey former shoe warehouse rebuilt into climbable sculpture by artist Bob Cassilly: tunnels, a rooftop Ferris wheel and a school bus over the edge. Admission around $22. Solo is genuinely better here — no one waiting while you crawl.
A mile-long former Route 66 bridge with a 22-degree bend, now pedestrian and cycle only, crossing the Mississippi to Illinois. Free, open dawn to dusk. Sunset from mid-span puts the river and the water intake towers in silhouette.