Vegas, Baby!

September 7, 2004 12:23 PM

Is there an "off the beaten path" in Vegas? Recommendations? Best of?
posted by skallas to travel & transportation (14 comments total)

Fremont Street ("Downtown Vegas" - the original/old school Vegas Strip) is still alive and kicking. It's not much different than "The" strip, but it's a little more intimate. It's a pedestrian mall with a lot of great old school neon and signage design if you like that kind of stuff. It also has a huge outdoor light show (displayed on a gigantic, far-stretching canopy overhead) that I found to be quite impressive... and I don't get impressed by a whole lot. (There's certainly an element of kitsch, but hell: it's vegas!) It's a taxi/limo ride from the strip, but it's a nice escape.

Fremont Sreett is also home of Binion's Horseshoes, home of most of the Poker tournaments you see on TV.
posted by Hankins at 12:30 PM on September 7, 2004

Yes, you can go down there and imagine where Lucile Ball, and all those Tonight Show Guests were playing circa 1969: The Sands, The Dunes, the Golden Nugget. (I know at least one of those is on Fremont St.). There's also a surprising cluster of arty stores and galleries on, or not to far from Fremont St.

I suspect you're being taken to Vegas involuntarily--seriously, I feel your pain.
posted by ParisParamus at 12:36 PM on September 7, 2004

The light show downtown is definitely awesome. Everyone just kind of stops walking and looks up.

If you're mobile, I also reccomend the Hoover Dam. The ride out there is beautiful and I thought the generators were definitely worth seeing.
posted by amandaudoff at 12:38 PM on September 7, 2004

Oh! This is still on the strip, but the New York New York rollercoaster is highly underrated. I was there for my boyfriend's sister's wedding last year and we spent about $1.50 gambling and $12 each on the ride.

He even liked it and he hates rollercoasters.
posted by amandaudoff at 12:40 PM on September 7, 2004

Th tic tac toe-playing chicken at the Tropocana? Also, the architecture of the restaurants in many of the hotels is quite impressive (but I guess that's not "off-the-beaten-path...)
posted by ParisParamus at 1:06 PM on September 7, 2004

tic tac toe-playing chicken at the Tropocana?

Sadly, I think the chicken is no longer there (at least that's what I heard a few months back).

It's not "off the beaten path," but if you're looking for a low-key place to gamble on the strip, I highly recommend Casino Royale. Friendly staff, quick drink service, low bet minimums. Low-rent, sure, but not as grungy as, say, Boardwalk or the Ho.
posted by uncleozzy at 1:14 PM on September 7, 2004

Second everything about Fremont. You can take a bus there from the main strip. Not that I wish I had stayed longer or anything, but the hour I was there was the only hour I enjoyed out of two days in Vegas.

But then, I don't gamble.
posted by rafter at 2:07 PM on September 7, 2004

This advice may not be good for everyone who doesn't find the ersatz atmosphere of the city quickly cloying like I do, but go outside. There's some really cool landscape near Vegas, and it's especially pleasant in the spring and fall. I wish I could remember specifics from when one of my friends was at UNLV, but we did some hiking out in Red Rock Canyon just west of the city, and some water rec out on Lake Mead. I also recommend Valley of Fire state park, about 30 min north on I-15.

I also like the UNLV library. Way cool.
posted by weston at 2:09 PM on September 7, 2004

The Peppermill! (images)

A 24-hour space-age diner in glowing purple and blue neon... large round comfy booths, fake plastic cherry trees, coloured sugar - and Penn and Teller like to hang out there, apparently. Probably the best food on the strip outside one of those uber-expensive restaurants. I recommend you go there the first night you're in Vegas, because you'll want to go there every day thereafter. I hate Vegas, but I love love love the Peppermill.

Also, the Liberache Museum (really!) and the Double Down Saloon.
posted by Gortuk at 2:50 PM on September 7, 2004

I stayed at Binion's on Fremont St during the World Series of Poker (in fact I'm wearing the T-shirt right now) and had a blast. Saw some frightening amounts of money on the tables & gathered $160 bucks of my own from the roulette tables (inc. 3 night of free drinks) which paid for the room. It's old school & a bit faded but fun if you like that kind of thing. Lots of LV history there with The Golden Nugget over the street too.

I was in LV for the second time & it made more sense being downtown. We'd head down to the Strip for the day/evening & then back Downtown for the late night action. Met some fun people.

I'd recommend getting the public buses that go between The Strip & Downtown as they only tend to take 5-10 mins and if the traffic does get snarled up you're not paying for it.

Second the New York, New York roller coaster. Too much of a wuss to try the one on top of the Stratosphere

Check out Chepo Vegas for more info. These guys seem to relish the really cheap, boozy dirty Vegas but the site is pretty comprehensive with some great tips on cheap accommodation deals.

Oh and I never understood why the Hoover Dam is so great. An impressivish structure but surrounded by hundreds of ugly pylons. Strange. Valley of Fire was somewhere I'd've liked to go & I loved the trip from Tahoe on US-50/US-93 via Ely. Gotta love that desert...
posted by i_cola at 2:50 PM on September 7, 2004

Warning: I am a dork. I enjoyed a lot of weird out-of-the way Vegas which was also known as Vegas-on-a-shoestring. When I've gone, I've stayed at Fitzgerald's [leprechaun theme, strange], Jackie Gleason's Plaza [I have no recollection of this place] and the Westward Ho! [777 rooms, funny name, totally filled with older people from the Midwest]. I got married in Las Vegas and highly recommend the Little White Chapel drive-up window, if that's what you're after. No, I'm not still married, neither is Britney Spears. I'm glad Weston mentioned the UNLV library so I don't have to, but it is worthwhile, so is the public library. I highly recommend reading Literary Las Vegas before you go, it has some great essays, old and new, about the place. Other things I liked:

roller coasters - a lot of places have fun books where you can get 2-for-1 on these things. There are 3 good roller coasters in LV that I can remember [Circus Circus, NY NY, The Stratosphere].
lounges While you're at Circus Circus, you can see if you can grab a drink in the revolving cocktail lounge/midway and watch some trained cat performances. I've heard the Peppermill is great, haven't been.
pinball when I was there the time before last, it seemed that every big casino on the strip had been all "familied out" and had pinball, and some weird games like Rocky & Bullwinkle and they were cheap. The last time I went they seemed not so cheap. If you like pinball, keep an eye open
bowling there is bowling at one of those casinos that has a little tour bus that goes out to it [Sam's Town] that was a fun way to do something non-Vegas-y

Other stuff here, we'd always play a game as we walked around trying to figure out what theme park ideas they hadn't already exploited there... see what you come up with.
posted by jessamyn at 5:33 PM on September 7, 2004

i second red rock canyon and the hoover dam.

liberace museum is also fabulous.
posted by heather at 8:18 PM on September 7, 2004

I second the Double Down. Windowless, incredibly divey punk rock bar. Never closes. Fun.
posted by finn at 8:38 AM on September 8, 2004

Valley of Fire state park. At sunset, it's one of the most incredible places on earth.
posted by WolfDaddy at 9:52 AM on September 8, 2004