3 Days in Las Vegas
Vegas, baby!
It’s one of the most frequently visited cities in the U.S. for foreign tourists — most of whom are presumably promptly disappointed. For the uninitiated, Las Vegas can seem like a garish circus of money-grubbing, deception, and dirt, fenced in by bland strip malls and the barren desert beyond. But that’s just the impression you’ll get if you stay on the Strip. This is a sprawling city with dozens of neighborhoods, and your friendly local friend (that’s me) knows that there’s far more to this town than the big-name casinos. Drive a few miles from the Strip and you’ll find a vibrant arts district, an older, rapidly-revitalizing downtown, and even some awe-inspiring nature. And yes, you can play slots basically anywhere.
Day 1: The Strip & Nearby
Okay, okay, we’ll spend some time on the Strip. As long as you don’t get trapped in the labyrinthine maze of casinos and carpeted overpasses, you can have some good clean fun here. Just east of the Strip, there’s a cool little neighborhood that gets some of its energy from the nearby University of Las Vegas campus. Here, you can check out the city’s best museum and eat at one of the country’s best Thai restaurants.
- 10 AM: Buffet Brunch
The Strip is all about excess, so it’s no wonder that all-you-can-eat buffets are such a big deal here. Some of the biggest buffets charge upwards of $100 per head for their brunch, but ones that actually taste good are relatively reasonable. The best buffet food in town is at Wicked Spoon in the Cosmopolitan, which charges just $30 for brunch ($36 on weekends). No cafeteria-style spoon-slopping here — the food is all made fresh and meticulously plated into tapas-style small bites. If you can’t leave Vegas without losing a few bucks, you can get your fill at the slot machines and gaming tables nearby.
- 2 PM: National Atomic Testing Museum
Vegas isn’t a big museum town — the biggest attraction in the National History Museum is an animatronic dinosaur — but this place is an exception. With funding from the Smithsonian Institute, the National Atomic Testing Museum tells the fascinating story of America’s obsession with the atom. Did you know that tourists used to come to Las Vegas to watch mushroom clouds spread over the desert from the atom bomb tests — or that there used to be a beauty contest where aspiring “Miss Atomics” wore mushroom cloud-themed leotards?
- 5 PM: Dinner at Lotus of Siam
You probably didn’t guess that some of the best Thai food in America is located in a strip mall in the Las Vegas sprawl. But Lotus of Siam really is top of the line, and you don’t have to take my word for it: the chef has won an award from the prestigious James Beard Foundation. The menu is northern Thai, authentically flavorful and fiery. Make sure to reserve a table ahead of time, because this place attracts crowds — including a few celebrities.
- 7 PM: Pinball Hall of Fame
The Las Vegas Pinball Collectors Club opened this odd little museum in 2006 to show off some of their crown jewels. Inside the nondescript concrete building, you’ll find rows and rows of pinball machines from all points in the game’s history, as well as other relics of the golden age of arcades. Keep an eye out for the world’s last functional penny gumball machine — still regularly refilled with gumballs! Entrance is free, but bring a pocketful of quarters if you want to play some games.
- 9 PM: Double Down Saloon
Shows on the Strip usually mean high kicks, high spectacle, and quite a few has-beens. If you know where to look, though, you can find a different kind of performance just blocks away from the big casinos. Punk and alt music fans have been turning out for wild shows at the Double Down Saloon for decades. The walls are papered over with layers of posters and other sundry scraps, which flap like feathers when the music gets really loud. Who says punk’s dead?
Day 2: Downtown & Arts District
Before there was the Strip, there was Downtown. This relatively sane area was once the wildest Main Street in the West, and a few of the century-old casinos and hotels still stand. After a low point at the close of the 20th century, Downtown has reinvented itself as a hipper, younger alternative to the debauchery a few miles south. It helps that the area is so near the city’s Arts District, a pocket of culture and quirkiness that recently sprung up in a handful of abandoned industrial buildings.
- 10 AM: Makers & Finders Coffee
After all that decadence at yesterday’s buffet brunch, you’re probably looking for something lighter. You’ll find it at Makers & Finders Coffee. This stylish spot is located near Vegas’s oft-overlooked Arts District and has all the carefully-chosen design elements that you’d expect of such a location. The colorful paintings of llamas on the walls echo the Latin theme of the food, all of which comes with a side of plantains.
- 11 AM: Arts Factory
Abandoned at the end of Vegas’s industrial era, this sprawling mid-century factory complex has been converted into the hub of the city’s arts scene. Local artists display their eclectic works here, including everything from painting to sculpture to wearable handicrafts. On the weekends, the Factory holds lively events involving food trucks and DJs.
- 1 PM: Arts District Shopping
Don’t leave the Arts District without checking out some of the quirkiest shops in Vegas. There are plenty of interesting, artist-owned boutiques inside the Arts Factory, as well as in the newer Arts Square across the street. Vintage lovers can spend hours in another cluster of stores on S Main Street, where you’ll find both typical thrift stores such as Martin’s Mart and more curated, vintage boutiques such as Rockin Bettie and Buffalo Exchange. There are also an eclectic range of not-your-grandma’s antique stores, my favorite of which is the truly bizarre Las Vegas Oddities and Antiques. In the market for a shrunken head? You’ll find a whole shelf of them here.
- 2 PM: Lunch at Downtown Container Park
Of all the cities to jump on the container park trend, Las Vegas is one of the more unexpected. After all, it’s nowhere near any of the harbors where seafaring shipping containers pile up like cities. Wherever these containers actually came from, the designers here managed to make some pretty cool stuff with them. There are container playgrounds and container sculptures, shops and restaurants contained in containers. The best grub here is at Big Ern’s BBQ, where the brisket and pulled pork comes close to the quality in heavy-hitter barbeque cities like Austin and Dallas.
- 4 PM: Neon Museum
Before musical fountains and giant LCD billboards, Las Vegas drew in customers with neon. Businesses competed with one another to design the biggest, flashiest signs, making a drive through downtown in the 1950s a truly psychedelic experience. Most of the signs are gone now, but many of them have been preserved at the Neon Museum. Your admission fee includes a guided walking tour through the outdoor exhibit, which includes fascinating tidbits about the Vegas of the past.
- 7 PM: Dinner at Carson Kitchen
This downtown darling serves stylish, inventive American fare that you’d probably pay three times as much for in a casino restaurant. My favorite small plate is the devilled eggs, four perfect specimens topped with bacon and caviar. Most of the dishes are made to be shared, so take along a few friends and chow down.
- 9 PM: Commonwealth Bar
Commonwealth has been fairly called the best bar in Vegas, holding its own against the flashier places on the Strip. The vibe is Prohibition chic, with a discreet black exterior and an interior full of chandeliers, leather stools, and photographs of flapper beauties. The rooftop is a great place to chill in good weather (i.e. all year round). There’s a speakeasy in the back that you can get into if you follow a few secret instructions — I’ll fill you in if you take me along. If you’re not into the whole speakeasy thing, you can always hop to another bar on Fremont Street; there are at least a dozen of them, each with its own unique feel.
Day 3: Red Rock Canyon & Chinatown
After a few days carousing in Vegas, it can be easy to forget that you’re in the middle of a vast, undeveloped desert. Drive just 30 minutes in any direction from the urban core and you’ll be deep in the Mojave. If you drive west, you’ll find yourself at Red Rock Canyon, a well-run national park with beautiful hiking and bicycling trails to suit every level of enthusiasm. The clean air is a perfect antidote to the smoke of the city. Best of all, once you finish your hike, you’re just half an hour away from another party.
- 9 AM: Breakfast at The Bagel Cafe
On your way out of town, stop in the residential neighborhood of Summerlin to breakfast on the only true New York bagel you’ll ever find in Vegas (or Nevada — and possibly the whole American Southwest). This isn’t some hipster joint carefully crafting artisan bread rings (and somehow still missing the mark), just a no-frills deli that happens to be exactly like the originals back East. The bagels are fresh, chewy rings of perfection that get unceremoniously dumped into wire baskets, still steaming, all morning long. Choose one for breakfast (I go for Everything), then have a sandwich wrapped to go for your picnic later.
- 10 AM: Hiking in Red Rock Canyon
When you arrive at Red Rock Canyon, stop at the Visitors Center to pick up maps and get advice on conditions. The helpful park rangers will point you towards trails that suit your fitness level and include sights you might want to see, including ancient petroglyphs left by the Native American people who once called this canyon home. Don’t forget to stay to watch the sunset, which looks particularly spectacular over the sunset-colored stones.
- ? PM: Carousing in Chinatown
No matter how late you get back to Vegas, you can find something to eat in Chinatown. Las Vegas’s most densely-concentrated area of Asian-owned businesses isn’t as aesthetically charming as its counterparts in San Francisco and New York — it’s basically a cluster of strip malls — but it makes up for its drab looks in great late-night eats. There’s Joyful House, which serves classics like Peking duck and sweet and sour pork until 3 AM, Honey Pig, an all-you-can-eat, all-night Korean barbecue, and Pho Kim Long, dishing out Chinese and Vietnamese food to a motley crowd 24 hours a day.
For slightly more raucous fun, party with the locals at the variety of karaoke bars dotted across the area. There’s a karaoke bar for each of the many Asian immigrant communities that make their home here, from the Filipino Kapuso Kapamilya to the Korean Western Soondae. The hippest is J Karaoke, a private-room place where you can stuff your mouth with fusion bar bites like bibimbap fries if you don’t want to sing. If you can keep your eyes open, you might even be able to make it until the iconic Ronald’s Donuts opens at 4 AM. Their classic, fluffy donuts are the perfect last bite to cap off your Vegas journey.
Our Las Vegas local friends are waiting to show you the best time of your life! Send them a message to meet!
