By Southern Chick, Marika Flatt

If you don’t already have a regular girls’ trip that you take EVERY YEAR, I highly recommend it. I organized my college girlfriends four years ago and now we take a trip every spring. We all met as freshman at Texas A&M back in 1993, graduated in 1997, and have kept in touch ever since. There’s about 8-10 of us, depending on the year.

2011 being our fourth year, we decided on San Antonio (all of us but one still lives in Texas). But, not just San Antonio, the Riverwalk to be exact. It’s a fabulous place for a ChickVacation because it’s got a lot of what women want: culture, great food, a happening scene, and plenty of reasons to relax.

After much research, we decided upon Hotel Contessa for our weekend trip. As always, there was a lot of laughing, talking about our kids, and a little gossip about the husbands, too. We were extremely pleased with our accommodations. Here’s a little advice to get you started planning your next ChickVacation to San Antonio’s Riverwalk.