The bright lights and enormous hotels are the defining image of Las Vegas. The Luxor, Paris, The Mirage – these are the pictures on the postcards, the places that everyone talks about. But not everyone can afford them – even the downtown locations like the Four Queens or Fremont can command a hefty free. Primarily during large events, like the recent NBA All-Star game, there were plenty of people relegated to the next tier of lodging and booked a room in one of the many Las Vegas motels.

Sure, it’s not the first thing you think of when it comes to Las Vegas – splashy characters throwing money around, the glorious sound of jackpots, dice across felt – you’ll get none of that in the motels in Las Vegas (though there seems to be a couple of slot machines in every available enclosed space across the city), but you will get a discount unlike any other. And the locations aren’t terrible – you’re not going to be near the bustle of the strip, but a large portion of the cheap Las Vegas motels can be found near the downtown area, and are not significantly worse than many of the lower scale hotels here.

Though the motels are quickly disappearing from the streets of Las Vegas, being run out and torn down when failing to compete with the rest of the city’s lodgings, there are still plenty Las Vegas motels to be found, primarily along Fremont. Here you’ll find affordable rates at Ferguson’s Downtown Motel, the Desert Hills, the Bonanza Lodge and the Ambassador, just to name a few.

The real drawback is the distance from the strip and complete lack of amenities, so if you can disregard these small problems, you can find motels for around $15 a night at places like the Ambassador. And it’s not even one of the best when it comes to cheap Las Vegas motels – the Western Hotel has similar pricing, but a far better layout and atmosphere.

There are a handful of options near the strip – the Glass Pool Inn is nice enough, and features exactly what you would expect given the name. The Cardinal Motel and Yucca Motel are generally considered the best when it comes to Las Vegas motels on the strip, though there’s not a whole lot of competition for such awards given the surrounding hotels. The Rummel Motel, stuck in the shadows of the gigantic Stratosphere hotel, is also a decent option for those who want to stick to the cheap side of the strip.

You have to be careful, though, when choosing cheap Las Vegas motels – some of them are mainly used for long-term boarding, and others make weekly appearances on the city’s police blotter. But it shouldn’t be too hard to distinguish the two – generally the closer you are to the main hotels, the better off you’ll be. The motels located in the north of the city are notoriously bad, and not always the most safe.