About this tour
San Antonio didn't earn the nickname 'Military City USA' from one base — it earned it from five, and three of them tell the U.S. Air Force's own origin story. This long drive runs from Kelly Field, the 'West Point of the Air' where San Antonio's aviation-training tradition began in 1917, west to Lackland, the gate every enlisted airman in Air Force history has walked through, and finally clear across town to Randolph's landmark Art Deco headquarters, nicknamed 'the Taj.' It's a real road trip — budget the better part of an afternoon — but it's the clearest way to see how one Texas city became the Air Force's home.