United States · California
Where to Stay in Rialto, California
Rialto lies east of Los Angeles in San Bernardino County, near the Cajon Pass and the Interstate 15 corridor, and dates from 1911.
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Where to stay in Rialto
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
The Wigwam Motel is the clue: Rialto's bed stock grew out of the road, and the road is still the reason most people stop. Interstate 10 and Interstate 15 both pass close, State Route 210 runs in the same corridor, and a room here is chosen for the next morning's driving far more often than for the city itself. That is a legitimate reason to stay.
Fifty-eight square kilometres of San Bernardino County give the city enough room that the difference between one address and another comes down to which junction it favours. Los Angeles is the obvious alternative, and it is a long way west. Anyone whose trip is really about the metropolis will do better based there, since the drive back out through the Interstate 10 corridor eats an evening in each direction.
Rialto answers a different brief. If you are crossing the Cajon Pass, working somewhere in San Bernardino County, or timing an event at Swing Auditorium, the Orange Pavilion or Fiscalini Field, a bed here removes the commute that a Los Angeles base would add. Metrolink covers the rail side.
The WBC Legends of Boxing Museum and the Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art fill whatever daylight the driving leaves.
About Rialto
Roads made this place.
What is Rialto known for?
Rialto stands east of Los Angeles at the point where Interstate 10, Interstate 15 and State Route 210 organise the traffic of San Bernardino County, with the Cajon Pass close by. The Wigwam Motel remembers an older version of that trade. Swing Auditorium, Fiscalini Field and the Orange Pavilion account for the events side, and the WBC Legends of Boxing Museum gives the city a specialism of its own.
What are the main landmarks in Rialto?
The Wigwam Motel is the one people photograph. Beyond it the register runs to venues: Swing Auditorium, the Orange Pavilion and Fiscalini Field between them cover the events trade that a city of this size in San Bernardino County can support. Two museums are more specific.
The WBC Legends of Boxing Museum and the Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art pull in different directions entirely, and the First Christian Church of Rialto anchors the older civic end of the list.
What is the history of Rialto?
The city dates from 1911. Rialto existed as a settlement long before Interstate 10, Interstate 15 and State Route 210 arrived to give San Bernardino County the shape it has, and the difference between those two eras is most of the city's story. First Christian Church of Rialto belongs to that first phase.
What followed, over a century, was the steady conversion of a small inland town into a node on the routes running east out of Los Angeles. The Wigwam Motel dates the middle chapter. Motels of that kind belonged to a period when the road itself organised travel, and Rialto's position near the Cajon Pass put it in the path of that traffic.
Then the freeways came. Interstate 10 and Interstate 15 turned a road town into an interchange, State Route 210 added a third axis, and Metrolink eventually laid a rail alternative across the same ground. Venues followed the growth.
Swing Auditorium, Fiscalini Field and the Orange Pavilion gave San Bernardino County places to gather, while the WBC Legends of Boxing Museum and the Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art record two very different local enthusiasms.
Where is Rialto?
Fifty-eight square kilometres of San Bernardino County sit outside Los Angeles. Rialto lies east of it, near the Cajon Pass, which supplies the only real relief the setting has. The rest is built ground.
Interstate 10, Interstate 15 and State Route 210 cut the city into sectors more decisively than any natural feature does.
What is the climate of Rialto?
The Cajon Pass sits just outside the city. Rialto lies east of Los Angeles inside a subtropical band, which in practice means a long hot half of the year and a mild remainder for San Bernardino County. Afternoons are the problem.
Anything scheduled outdoors at Fiscalini Field or the Orange Pavilion works better at the ends of the day, and Swing Auditorium, the WBC Legends of Boxing Museum and the Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art absorb the hours in between.
How do you get to Rialto?
Four routes do the work. Interstate 10 runs the east-west line from Los Angeles, Interstate 15 crosses the same district near the Cajon Pass, State Route 210 provides the third road axis, and Metrolink services put Rialto on the rail map of San Bernardino County as well. That is four separate approaches.
Arrival is therefore genuinely easy from any direction, which is much of why the Wigwam Motel found trade here in the first place.
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Updated August 2026