United States · Texas
Where to Stay in Laredo, Texas
Laredo is a city of south Texas in the United States, an old Spanish town on the Rio Grande, a great crossing point for trade with Mexico.
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Where to stay in Laredo
The right area depends on your trip — here's what each neighbourhood is best for.
Where you stay in Laredo turns on the old town or the river. The streets around San Agustin Plaza keep the church, the museums, and the old houses within a walk, and staying downtown suits anyone here for the historic city. The river runs by the plaza.
Old stone walls line the square. Out toward the highways and the brush, the town gives way to the trade parks, the ranch country, and the dry plains. A room out of town trades the streets for the mesquite ranches, the wide brush country, and the long roads of the border.
The dry land runs to the sky. Stay downtown for the plaza, or out for the ranch country. San Agustin Plaza sits only a short drive back in from the brush.
About Laredo
Laredo is the old river city of the border.
What is Laredo known for?
On the north bank of the Rio Grande in south Texas, it was founded by Spanish settlers long before the United States reached the river, and it keeps a historic plaza and church of its colonial days, the museum of a short-lived republic that once broke away here, a great inland port of trade crossing to Mexico, and the Tex-Mex food and music of the border. The wide river runs slow and brown. The dry brush country spreads around.
What are the main landmarks in Laredo?
The old plaza is the heart of Laredo. San Agustin Plaza, with its old colonial church and stone houses around a square from Spanish days, holds the historic town, the emblem of the city, by the river. A capitol museum stands nearby.
The little Capitol of the Republic of the Rio Grande keeps the tale of the breakaway state, while the river bridges, the old cathedral, and the brush ranches mark the country around Laredo.
What is the history of Laredo?
Laredo began under Spanish rule. Spanish colonists founded a town on the north bank of the Rio Grande in the seventeen-fifties, one of a line of settlements strung along the river, and it grew as a ranching town on the wild frontier of New Spain. The town flew many flags.
Spain, then Mexico, ruled it, and for a short while Laredo was even the capital of a little republic that tried to break free between the two. A war set the border on the river. When the line between Mexico and the United States was drawn down the Rio Grande, Laredo found itself on the northern bank, and those who wished to stay Mexican crossed over and founded Nuevo Laredo on the far side.
The two towns grew as one. Trade and rails tied the sister cities across the water, and Laredo swelled into a great inland port where goods pour across the river between the two lands, keeping its old plaza, its Spanish church, and its border ways. The trucks still cross the bridges.
Laredo keeps its plaza and its river on the edge of Texas.
Where is Laredo?
Laredo lies in the far south of Texas, on the Rio Grande where it forms the line with Mexico. The city sits on low bluffs above the brown river in a hot, dry land of mesquite and cactus, on the flat brush country of the border, with the sister city of Nuevo Laredo across the water. Brown water winds through the brush.
The dry plain runs far.
What is the climate of Laredo?
Laredo has a hot, dry semi-desert climate. Scorching summers and mild winters hold on the border, with fierce heat much of the year and little rain over the brush country. The summer heat beats down.
Winter stays warm and dry.
How do you get to Laredo?
Laredo lies in south Texas on the Rio Grande, at the edge of Mexico. Highways and rail run to it down from San Antonio and across the bridges from Mexico, and trucks fill the trade roads. Bridges span the river.
San Antonio lies north up the road.
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Updated August 2026