Edinburg, Texas

Edinburg sits fifteen minutes up I-69C from McAllen, which means you get the shopping and hospitals without living in the traffic. UTRGV's main campus is here; Vaqueros basketball at Bert Ogden Arena is cheap winter entertainment, and the university runs lectures and events that are open to the public.

The Edinburg Scenic Wetlands, one of the nine World Birding Center sites, is a 40-acre pocket of ponds right in town and an easy morning walk when the buff-bellied hummingbirds are in. The Museum of South Texas History on the courthouse square is the best rainy-day museum in the Valley and worth a full afternoon.

Edinburg has fewer Winter Texan parks than Mission, Alamo, or Donna, and less of the built-in resort activity calendar, meaning fewer potlucks and dance halls inside the gate. Folks who winter here tend to like it exactly for that. If you want a packed park social schedule, look at the Mid-Valley towns; if you want a quiet lot with a real town around it, Edinburg fits.