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Whether it’s somewhere you’ve always wanted to go (or have already been to), or you can’t think of anything worse, you probably have a gut feeling about Vegas. The thing is, readers, even Sin City has hidden depths, and it’d be rude of us to judge it purely on its reputation.

Flight Finder Olivia has seen many sides to Vegas over the years, from long before she was legally allowed to drink or gamble. So whether you’ve blown your budget on day one, or the bright lights aren’t your thing, here are a few of her tips for anyone who wants to skip the Strip:

Best Places for a Taste of Vegas Culture & History

Winner: Arts District

CC image courtesy of Jason Rosenberg on Flickr

The Arts District website bills themselves as “the least Vegas neighbourhood in Vegas,” but I’m inclined to disagree. I think this is the most Vegas neighbourhood in Vegas, it’s just not the Vegas that people usually picture.

Beneath all the glitz and chaos of the Strip and its hordes of tourists, Vegas is still an isolated town in the middle of the Mojave desert. And like most isolated towns in the Mojave, there’s a culture that celebrates weirdness, artsiness, and a give-no-damns attitude. If you’ve ever been to Joshua Tree or Slab City, you know what I’m talking about.

The Arts District is void of casinos and towering glimmering hotels; in their place, you’ll find art galleries, antique shops, and an array of hipster-style coffee and cuisine. Technicolor murals adorn the streets, and unless you visit during one of their First Friday festivities, you’ll likely find those streets pretty quiet.

Other quirky stops include the Burlesque Hall of Fame and local icon Koolsville Tattoo, known for their $10 flash sheets.

The Arts District has to be my number one spot for Vegas culture, because it’s the best place to get an authentic sense of the city. Over half a million people live in Vegas and most of them don’t hang out on the Strip. This is a place to chill, explore, and chat with the folks who live in the shadows of all that chaos.

Runner-Up: Mob Museum

The origins of Las Vegas are part of its mystique. You won’t find the real tea on their official travel sites, but it’s an open secret that the mafia built the city into what it is today.

The Mob Museum doesn’t shy away from this notoriety. A local Uber driver even once told me that it was the only place to learn the real history of Vegas.

The collection includes more than just relics from the Vegas mafia, stretching their attention across the entire national network of mafiosos. The museum’s crown jewel is the wall from the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, where you can see the actual bullet holes from guns fired by Al Capone’s men.

Best Day Trips From Vegas

Winner: Death Valley

Death Valley? Isn’t that just an empty wasteland?

Oh no, dear reader, oh no.

Maybe my SoCal soul is biased, but Death Valley is a magical place. When I first visited, I was caught off-guard by the sheer variety of landscapes it contained.

The salt flats are probably what you picture when you think of Death Valley – and they are indeed a sight to behold. Badwater Basin stretches out into the valley as a great white plain and visitors are invited to wander across as they please, making for some striking photographs.

The basin is where the literal hotspot broke the North American records for the lowest and driest place, as well as the world record for hottest at 56.7° C. Not only can you fry an egg on the pavement there, so many people did it that the park had to ask them to stop.

Zabriskie Point is the park’s Badlands, and I always think it looks like fabric dropped onto the floor in a heap. Then there’s Artist’s Palette, where the hillside is splashed with green and blue among the red.

Lastly, there are the dunes dotting the valley, the best being Mesquite Flats – so otherwordly you might think you’ve gotten woefully lost and ended up in the Sahara.

The park is about 150 miles from downtown Vegas and takes about two hours to drive there. You can break up the trip by stopping in the ghost town of Rhyolite, or if you’re road-tripping through the Mojave, you can do what I did and stop in Beatty, NV to hang with the burros.

Runner-Up: Lake Mead

This is the classic day trip from Vegas. It’s only about 30 miles from the city centre, and in a seemingly endless dry desert, it’s a bit of an oasis.

It’s got every outdoor activity covered: hiking, swimming, camping, boating, you name it. What this region lacks in foliage, it makes up for in sheer space. You could easily spend a week here exploring every craggy peak and shore.

It also includes the Hoover Dam, which isn’t exactly an exciting place to visit (I’m pretty sure everyone who’s been here went because their dad dragged them as a kid) but the scale of the structure is pretty impressive.

If you’re looking for a one-stop outdoor adventure without sitting in the car for hours, Lake Mead is your place.

Honorable Mention: Grand Canyon West

The Grand Canyon is one of those things that everyone should experience at least once in their life. It’s not just a “big hole in the ground”; it’s so massive that it’s hard to believe it’s real when you’re looking right at it.

If the main spots were more accessible from Vegas, this would easily win this category. It still deserves a mention because the West Rim is way, way closer than the more popular viewpoints (125 miles from Vegas versus 290) while also providing some pretty sweet canyon views.

The West Rim’s unique attraction is the Skywalk, a glass-floored lookout point allowing you to peer deep into the abyss of the canyon (and your soul).

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Got a burning travel question, or an idea for an article you’d like to see in The Detour? Let us know below :-)

I've got an idea! 🌴

Ah yes, Indiana. Famous for raiding lost arks and visiting temples of doom. Wait—not that Indiana you say? Right, okay…well, it seems like they still have a few things in common.

Starting in Indianapolis, the state capital, you can get your taste of over-the-top archaeological adventure in the Market Street Catacombs. You’re unlikely to find any sarcophagi down there, but it’s a cool place to learn about the history of the city and the market above, which dates back to the 1880s.

Next up, it’s undoubtedly got to be The Ruins. While they may sound aptly named, these so-called ruins are actually the remains of a demolished New York skyscraper, taken to their final resting place in Indianapolis’ Holliday Park. For ultimate creepy vibes, we’d visit around Halloween, when the park is taken over by candlelit trails and talking animals.

Don’t be lured in by the city’s ‘ pyramids’ if you’re still on your Indy quest. Instead, you’ll want to skip to the car chase portion of the movie at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the famous Indy 500. The main race season runs from May–October, but tours and race experiences run all year.

Outside the city, hikers and bikers should head to Brown County State Park in Nashville (guitars away, wrong Nashville) for rugged forest trails, or head lakeside to Indiana Dunes National Park. Just watch out for the snakes. Easy bonus points here for anyone bagging as many states as possible, since both Michigan and Illinois are within spitting distance.

Once you’ve had enough of all that fresh air, it’s time to head back underground for some more adventuring. Indiana has a whole load of caves, the most popular and longest of which is the Indiana Caverns. But it’s also pretty much a theme park, so we’d descend into the bat-filled Wyandotte Caves for an experience less Flintstones and more… The Descent? Hopefully not…

Presuming you make it out of all that in one piece, you’ll need to refuel with the local delicacy—a pork tenderloin sandwich. Think a big ol’ Schnitzel, but inside a sandwich. And if you’ve still got space in your dessert stomach after, a slice of traditional Amish sugar cream pie is obligatory. Ich saag dank am disch!

All the important (or silly, or strange) travel news from across the web this week.

• With 10 months to go until the Paris Olympics, the city is battling a small but mighty enemy that might prove to be a massive pain— bed bugs.
• We’ve all got our pet peeves when sitting next to strangers on a plane, but some of these should surely just be illegal? Looking at you, toe clippers.
• Climbing Mont Blanc could be getting easier by the year, as researchers say Europe’s highest mountain is shrinking. Apparently it’s lost over 2 metres since 2021!
• And finally, it’s Fat Bear Week at Katmai National Park & Preserve in Alaska!
  “What on earth is that?” you might be saying. So glad you asked. It’s a celebration of the resilience, adaptability and strength of the park’s brown bears, which also involves the public voting for their favourite bear.
  Ultimately, it’s up to you what factors make you vote for a bear, but we’re on team 747—and that may or may not be because he shares a name with our favourite 55 -year-old Boeing.