Alamo is at the center of the tourism industry in the Valley with over 200, 000 out-of-area visitors per year!
Nature tourists, visiting Santa Ana NWR, exceed 165,000 per yeas; with 99,000 of them here to go ‘birding.’ More than 90% stay three- to-seven nights at local motels and bed and breakfasts. They inject an estimated $34 million per year into surrounding communities.
Considered the jewel of the NWR
system, Santa Ana
is also the most popular and best
known wildlife refuge in the
Valley It’s 2,088
acres has nearly 400 species of
birds, half
of all butterfly species found in North
America, and rarities such as the indigo snake and
the endangered
ocelot. A butterfly garden is next to the Visitor Center.
During the winter; a 60-passenger tram traverses the
refuge three times a day. A
friendly naturalist from the
Valley Nature Center leads
the hour-long, guided, seven-mile ride. The
refuge is
open seven days a week from sunset to
sunset. Access is via
Alamo Road (FM 907) from
Expressway 83 and Business 83.
Winter Texans and other visitors total 34,000, per year. Every winter, 20,000 Winter Texans live up to eight months in Alamo. Most of them stay in recreational vehicles or in small mobile homes at many Winter Texan parks. Others maintain homes in the city or at Alamo Country Club, which boasts 500 homes around a golf course, swimming pool, tennis courts and dub house (club facilities not open to public).
About 14,000 visitors per year explore the Winter Texan life, visit friends and family, come on business; or on pilgrimages to the shrine in neighboring San Juan. Recently declared a basilica, the San Juan church attracts up to 18,000 pilgrims from Mexico and United States, every weekend. Other notable visitor sites are the popular Sunderland Cactus Garden, Saint Joseph Catholic Church, built in 1924, in Gothic Revival Style, and Alamo Central Park on Main Street, which is being renovated to add a raised bandstand, an impressive cantera stone fountain, native plant display gardens and water gardens. The city also boasts many good restaurants, motels and its own Alamo Inn, in a restored historic landmark, offering traditional bed and breakfast hospitality. Alamo also has a Birding Information Center, with an array of wildlife books, maps, cards and other items. Enjoy your visit, and come back soon.