Boca Chica Beach is one of the best-kept secrets of Southern Texas. The beach is wide with 8-miles of undeveloped, pure white sand that’s open to vehicles, campers, anglers, surfers, and sunbathers. The coastline is untarnished and wide open. It’s like having your private
beach for miles. It lies just south of the well-known beach, South Padre Island. They are separated only by the inlet, which creates the Laguna Madre. It’s teeming with sea life, and on a particular day, you can spot dolphins launching themselves out of the surf and a
rocket streaking into the sky from the nearby Space-X center.
The Rio Grande River is on the southern edge of Boca Chica Beach. It’s an impressive flow of freshwater terminating in the Gulf of Mexico and is the natural border between the United States and Mexico. The two countries are separated by just 35-feet of this shared international waterway.
Realizing Texas was once part of Mexico is easy to comprehend when observing the other nation from 10-yards away. There’s no wall, no barrier between the two sovereign areas. That brackish water zone, not quite salt-filled Gulf water and not entirely clear river water,
perfectly reflects Brownsville’s community. A unique mixture of the two that cannot be found anywhere else but here.