A sandy eight-mile beach on a narrow spit of arid land between the Rio Grande delta and the salt flats of the lower Laguna Madre, Boca Chica is the alpha and omega of Texas—the place where a once mighty river spills into the mightier Gulf, where the U.S. ends and Mexico begins, and where the high-rises of South Padre Island give way to an untamed, undeveloped coast. Protected by both state and federal authorities as part of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, this gloriously empty stretch of shore calls to anyone wanting to give civilization the slip.