Offbeat Things To Do In Las Vegas

An Overview of Las Vegas

Las Vegas, a desert city found in the state of Nevada, is an internationally renowned resort destination, famous in media for it’s casinos, gambling and wild nightlife. The area is also popular for its numerous fine dining establishments, recreation centers and, to a lesser extent, excellent camping oppertunities in the desert. As a major entertainment hub with large sums of money flowing through it daily, Vegas has many attractions in the area. There are several unique and offbeat things to do in Las Vegas.

Offbeat Things To Do In Las Vegas

Dig This Vegas

As far as playgrounds go, this one is extreme. This giant sandbox amuseument park, designed for adults, allows visitors over 13 years old to operate construction vehicles, tearing up the ground and operating multi-ton bulldozers and excavators.

The Neon Museum Las Vegas

While Vegas is famous for it’s long streets and strip filled with neon lights, many of the glowing signs have been retired over the years. The Neon Boneyard is a paid-entry graveyard of all the discarded neon signs that once decorated the city, from the 1930s to today.

Octosteam

This is a unique Steampunk-artwork made of metal and hand-welds in the shape of a wheeled octopus.

Flaming Praying Mantis in Downtown Container Park

The Downtown Container Park is an offbeat shopping center built entirely from shipping containers, making a unique shopping mall. The site’s most impressive feature is a 40-foot-long metal sculpture of a Praying Mantis, known to shoot fire out of its antennae.

Fremont Street Experience

This is a long, extremely bright and active 24-hour covered mall known for it’s huge LED-patterned canopy, a famous local casino, numerous restaurants and other forms of entertainment. One of the most offbeat things to do in Vegas is take the 11-story slot-machine-themed zipline SlotZilla down the street, allowing the lights and colors to streak by.

World’s Largest Functioning Fire Hydrant

Outside of a small dark park near downtown Las Vegas, there stands a 15-foot-tall bright yellow fire hydrant. The fire hydrant comes with a publically accessible lever which shoots out a potent jet of water.

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area

Many of the deserts surrounding Vegas are spectacular biospheres with unique geological features. Red Rock Canyon in particular has rising red sandstone peaks, Native American petroglyphs, scenic drives and stunning hiking trails. Also in the area, the Keystone Thrust Fault makes unique scenery, as does the sheltered Ice Box Canyon with seasonal waterfalls. The Conservation Area is directly west of Las Vegas.

Big Rig Jig

This huge sculpture is made from two semi-trucks twisted together in a bizarre S-shape. The artwork was originally created for the Burning Man Festival before behind brought to Vegas.

Dream Machine: Towering Space Mushroom

Vegas is home to quite a few odd art installations, but the Dream Machine is distinct. Found in Siegfried and Roy Park, this structure looks like an mirror-colored alien fungi delicately rising towards the sky above.

Big Edge

Another odd and compelling sculpture in Vegas is Nancy Rubin’s “Big Edge” which combines over 200 aluminum canoes, rowboats and kayaks into a bristling mash-up art piece.

Creamberry Cotton Candy Burritos

For a truly novel, undoubtedly unhealthy dessert option, the low-key Creamberry dessert café offers a burrito made from layered and folded cotton candy. The shop sells other, more common desserts, including ice creams, floats and creative treats.

Arch Rock Campground

This is a first-come, first-serve, 29-site campground located in Valley of Fire State Park. The region is gorgeous, with bright-red Aztec sandstone structures and impressive desert sceneries. The campground also has herds of shaggy, wild mountain goats nearby, loitering on cliff faces in defiance of gravity.

Ethel M Botanical Cactus Garden

This is a suprisingly well-stocked 3-acre botanical garden filled with desert plants and cacti. The garden can be found directly beside the Ethel M Chocolate Factory which famously produces gourmet chocolate for all of the Ethel M and Ethel’s brand chocolates. Both the factory and the garden are open to the public with no admission charge.

Flamingo Wildlife Habitat

Found within the aptly-named Flamingo Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip, there’s a small tropical enclosure with Chilean flamingos, ponds filled with koi fish and tropical grounds with parrots, swans, hummingbirds, pelicans and more.

Tule Springs Fossil Beds

On the northern edge of Vegas, the Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument is filled with late Pleistocene-age fossil beds, which revealed troves of petrified trees, mammoth bones, lion skeletons and other creatures. Currently, the site doesn’t have a fossil display, but the trench along the “Superquarry” where scientists uncovered over 500 vertebrate fossils can be seen.

Bellagio Conservatory & Botanical Gardens

While the Bellagio Casino likely needs no introduction as a major feature on the Vegas Strip, the features within merit extra attention. The Bellagio Conservatory contains vibrant seasonal plants, impressive decorations, a skylit atrium and themed exhibits which shift throughout the year.

Pinball Hall of Fame

This vast pinball-play museum contains over 200 old-school, restored pinball machines ranging from the 1940s into the modern era. Players can play a few games with anywhere between a dime and dollar per round. Plying at the Pinball Hall of Fame is one of the most unusual and offbeat things to do in Las Vegas.

Mystic Falls Park

Widely considered one of the best free-shows available in Las Vegas, this indoor park under a 10-story skylight provides displays involving waterfalls, animatronic animals, accompanying sounds and laser performances.

Zak Bagans’ The Haunted Museum

This is a unique paranormal museum known for it’s reported-haunted, 1938 mansion. The venue has creepy rooms, winding corridors and terrifying possessions which Zak Bagans collected over his lifetime.

Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition

This sprawling exhibition near the Vegas Strip contains over 250 artifacts dredged up from the Titanic shipwreck.

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