It would be disingenuous to say that many visitors seek out the downtown Vegas hotels when planning their vacations. They have one great factor in their favor: and that’s the greater value downtown. If you are just an average person looking to stretch your tourist dollar, well this is the place to go: the Las Vegas downtown hotels are collection of bargains that give you a different take on the city.

Likewise, it would also be disingenuous to say that these downtown casinos are completely bereft of charm. In fact, some travelers prefer the unassuming nature of the downtown Las Vegas hotels – they provide an alternate to the strip that can be comforting in its own right. And downtown Vegas hotels are nothing to be scoffed at – the Golden Nugget, the Plaza, Binions – all of them are quality ventures, but their age certainly shows. This is the Vegas of the old days, when the city was populated by gangsters and hoodlums, and nostalgia for the past is rampant on and around Fremont Street. You can almost see ghosts in the dark cedars and opaque marbles in every hotel in downtown Las Vegas.

Without a doubt, The Golden Nugget is definitely the classiest hotel in downtown Las Vegas, showing up many of those you’ll find anywhere in the city, but nowhere near the top-tier strip hotels like Mandalay Bay. But there is nothing specific, other than the incurable strip ambiance, which the Golden Nugget and the neighboring Las Vegas downtown hotels cannot provide. Sure the shows are not quite the same, nor will you find clubs like Rain or Tryst, seeing as how most every hotel in downtown Las Vegas is geared towards middle-aged gamblers and budget travelers – but there’s little else lacking here.

The Fremont Hotel is famous for its access to the adjacent Fremont Street Experience, Binions is the birthplace of the World Series of Poker, Main Street Station has the best bar and buffet in the area, and the Plaza Hotel, Four Queens and Fitzgerald’s are wonderfully average casino hotels that will always be ready to serve.

And even though the scene here is a bit different and slower paced than activity on the Las Vegas strip, it is still a worthwhile adventure to take in the downtown Vegas hotels. If nothing else than to prove that if the strip one day disappeared, the Las Vegas downtown hotels would ensure that Sin City remained one of the top tourist destinations in the country.