What Does La Quinta Mean in Spanish?

La Quinta Inn airport locations are one of the best places to stay when you need a home base away from home that is convenient to both the downtown business district and the airport. Personally, I love the Pittsburgh Airport La Quinta Inn. Why? Because it's the one near where I live! I love dropping in for breakfast when my family and friends stay there when visiting.

But always they are asking, "What does La Quinta mean?" It sure sounds Spanish, but my sister, who is Spanish teacher, with the explanation that could only mean "the fifth". Eh? So, La Quinta Inn is a fifth? Probably not.

I did some detective work. I looked at some other places called La Quinta (not as rare as you might guess) and found an old town called La Quinta. After his Department of Commerce, the word is archaic (that is no longer in use. Netscape Navigator and Big Mouth Billy Bass). This resulted in a hacienda or rest stop on the roadduring a very long journey. Every five days, travelers would take a load off at one of these "la quintas."  So, there you go - it's where you stay to recharge on the fifth day of travel.

Now, when you visit the La Quinta Inn at the airport, you obviously won't be travelling by horseback or foot. But with all the sightseeing and business dealing and family visiting, you can kind of imagine what it must've felt like for those early travellers to take a load off after five days.