The Broke Girls Guide To Las Vegas

Below is a comprehensive guide to all things Las Vegas.

Transportation

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Uber & Lyft

Cheapest, but know they have designated pick up and drop off spots. Don’t be that girl screaming where you are into the phone. They legally can’t go to a street corner Karen, read directions.

Taxi

Always a ripoff, don’t do it unless it’s the fastest and you’re about to miss the free club cut off (we’ll get there).

Limo

Nah, son, way out of your budget. Don’t be impressed by anyone showing up in one either, they could be in a Groupon taxi. Also, you can always get a free snazzy ride to the strip club in one (but don’t they have a cover to get in). People get paid a pretty penny if they take you there so everyone on the street will ask you.

Accommodations:

Hotels

make sure your room is close to an exit. Sure Tropicana seems like a nice budget fix, you can even walk to the MGM! Oh but wait… You have to walk a mile in heels first? Yes, you do, so don’t book that.

AirBnB

If you’re going on a crazy weekend the ubers might be cheaper than a hotel. Test it, get the app out and see what it cost to get to where you are going from your airbnb.

Week-Long Rentals

If you bring your own sheets and pillows you can get a week-long apartment rental for under $300 right next to the strip. Sure it’s a little sketchy, but you can’t beat it.

Eating

How Broke you are is directly correlated to how you should plan out meals. If you’re an AirBnB or apartment, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get your ass some PB&J to live off of that week and spend those last dollars on pregame drinks. Black beans have everything you need to survive, don’t be that girl in the bathroom throwing up cause you drank without budgeting for food.

If you’ve only got a small budget, and want the most bang for your buck, you can visit Chinatown, located south of the strip; it has the best all you can eat sushi for under $30. This isn’t your typical, “try not to smack your face in the sneeze proof glass while picking up sushi with your tongs,” this is grade A, order to make, top notch, authentic Sushi. Sushi Kiya even stays open till 3am… bangin.

Groupon is amazing in Vegas, you will find great deals for food and basically anything else you are looking for. Las Vegas is notorious for their all you can eat meals. If you can live off one meal a day, this is it, bishes.
I strongly suggest buying snacks at a grocery store instead, but you do you, boo boo.

It’s not a bad idea to pull your tinder out for a free meal but know that local guys don’t play that, so go for other tourists. Also, I have been known to lurk outside the nightclubs at the Wynn to score an extravagant free meal from a nice stranger leaving the nightclub between 2-4am. It works every time, patience, my young, wild padawan.

Activities.

Groupon, Groupon, Groupon.

But before you buy, call and get an appointment. You don’t want to end up with a Vegas Groupon that isn’t good for the weekend you are there.

If you can dream it, you can do it here: Nails, stripper classes, bar specials, a party bus for super cheap, etc., etc., etc…

Great tip: if you’re thinking about buying an excursion on Groupon, call the venue first and ask if they will beat that price. Chances are they have to split the money with Groupon and they might be happy to take a little money off just to keep more for themselves. This has proven most likely to work with party busses. Also if you are going outside of the summer season (March to September) you can haggle till they take half off.

The spas are the most underrated part of a Las Vegas vacation. The Korean spas are my favorite (try Las Vegas1070 E Sahara Ave). They’re amazing. Period. Or Groupon one, be my guest.

Partying.

We know why you came, and it wasn’t to go to sushi after a nice day at the spa, it was to let your ratchet freak flag fly, and girl, welcome home.

Clubs

This is the best part of Las Vegas; you can have the ultimate nightlife experience, absolutely free.

Yes, you read that correctly, free.

This is all happening because Vegas nightclubs don’t care about ticket sales, they care about selling bottles. The best way to sell bottles is to have the club packed with women (free entry), and even better to have a table of women partying so that every table around them wants to stay there all night long. It is quite a beautiful business model when you think about it.

If you’re willing to play the part then here is the script.

Step One: dress the part.

This is the time to let loose with tight clothes; wear those heels you never do, take that skankasorous rex dress out of your closet, and pack them in your Las Vegas bag, cause you are going to need it.

Always try to look like you actually have the money to be there, even if you don’t. No one wants to see your payless shoes that match your forever 21 dress, get your ass to the thrift store and find something that says, “I don’t need you to buy my this $20 drink, but I want you to.” Watch some makeup youtube videos, get your contour on, buy some freaking setting powder for the love of all that is pretty. Thought you’d never rock fake eyelashes? Think again, Becky. You need them. Everyone needs them.

Step Two: find a promoter.

Not all promoters are created equal. Some can get you in better places with fewer wait times, other will have you sit outside of a club for hours knowing you will never get in, just to make the club look cooler.

This sort of tom fuckery usually occurs during weeks like EDC, when everyone is there for the nightclubs and it is rare to find a good promoter. Just remember that they are people too and just ask them what the real deal is and they will probably tell you. If you are going to try this during EDC week, get in line super early and you will make it in, I promise.

If you don’t get approached by a promoter walking down the strip, it is because you didn’t walk down the strip. Have no fear, though, girl, the internet is here. Simply post a picture on Instagram of you and your squad with a few Vegas hashtags and they’ll find you. But even if they don’t, just go to the club’s Instagram, go to their tagged photos, and voila, a million tagged pictures of promoters posting their number to get on the guest list.

Do not try to get in the free line if you are not on the list, they don’t care and you won’t get in for free. You could potentially ask people in line if they have extra plus ones, sometimes men are required to come with a certain amount of women and don’t realize, they might need you. But who wants to be that girl? You are always on your Instagram anyway, Kelly, just do it.

Step Three: Tip.

If you came a little earlier than the cutoff, dressed the part, and are with your girls it is likely that you will be asked to step out of line and get your free champagne table. Sometimes your promoter can be cool enough to give you directions ahead of time. None of these ladies are expected to tip, so if you got some guy friends bummed out about drink prices, tell them to slip your server a 20 every once in a while and she will likely get them a few. Also, if you tip her things are going to go well for you in general, she might even stick up for you when Rachel falls on the table and laughs instead of getting her shit together.

Step Four: Work, bish.

Have the best time ever near someone else’s table so they share. Unless it’s a tight-knit group that doesn’t love fun girls, people are pretty much always open to sharing. Let’s be honest, you’re not finishing that 3k bottle of Ciroc, Derek. Get his number and party with that guy all week to avoid doing the steps again, or roll the dice on tomorrow. I’ve even just been pulled off the dance floor to drink at someone’s table. No one likes a pouty face, go with low expectations, and leave Lauren when she starts crying.

Same rules for day time pool parties, and remember to get there when the promoter says because free entry to a pool party means waking up early.

Bars.

The best part of Vegas is the free drinks. Most people think the best way to do this is to sit at penny slots and harass cocktail servers, and I am here to tell you that you’ve never been more wrong.

The cocktail servers are overworked and under tipped, if they find someone who is shelling out the kind of money they want to see, everyone else is completely ignored. But if you must try this method because you only have a bag of pennies, sit close to where they come in and out of to refill their tray and you will have a better chance. You can find this by just following one till she goes behind the employees only sign.

The real trick behind free drinks is the machine at the bar. Simply ask the bartender how much you need to put in for a free drink. If they’re cool, they’ll say something like bottomless twenty, this means you get drinks as long as there’s a twenty in, you don’t even have to play. If they roll their eyes and say you need to make a bet of at least one dollar with the twenty in and blah blah blahhhh…then maybe you should move. Either way, you get free drinks when you gamble, gamble as little as possible with the bartender, Keno takes the longest to play, blackjack and poker at the machine is a waste.

The best bars (and most cost-efficient) are off the strip, they’re downtown. If you’re not familiar with Las Vegas, downtown is what is referred to as old Vegas, it is the original strip. Here you can get three dollar beers and drink on the street with the masses, or you can gamble way cheaper than on the strip and still get free booze. It is an amazing sight to see. But you don’t get special privilege for dressing up here like you do on the strip, so wear whatever you want. Literally. ANYTHING goes. Got that girl that refuses to wear heels? Drop her here.

Dive Bars

Are you done spending money and feeling luxurious in your thrift store dress? Welcome to the hidden gems that the average tourist might never find. These are the dollar drinks and punk dives of fabulous Las Vegas:

Dinos – The best dive in Las Vegas, this punk paradise is located close to the strip and is an easy Uber or a long walk. If you guess the card suite on the PBR bottle, it’s free. The screens are always playing vintage porn and the bar is always filled with Vegas’ best. Friday is the best Karaoke in the world, and it is wonderfully awful.

Double Down Saloon – This lovely piece of shit is the most fucked up punk bar in Las Vegas, the bathrooms don’t shut, but you can order a drink that comes in a toilet. It is located in what locals call the “fruit loop,” because it is home to all of Vegas’ dive bars. Which helps introduce its weird neighbor, the Freezone.

Freezone – I don’t know if it is meant to be a dive bar, it’s supposed to be a lesbian night club, but they have unreal drink specials. Every Friday and Saturday night they have all you can drink packages for TWENTY DOLLARS! Highly recommend taking you and your broke girls there for a drag show and a drink package.

The Pioneer Saloon – This gem is a drive away from Las Vegas, but a great idea if Stacy’s got alcohol poisoning at her own bachelorette party and is begging you to get her out of Vegas. It could also be cool if you met a group of guys and want to impress them with this old western bar. It’s a forty-five-minute drive or you could rent a dirt bike or dune buggy (Groupon) and get there in twenty. They have liquor license number one in Nevada, holes in the walls from poker shootouts from as far back as the late 1800s, and a good band with a cheap cold beer every day.  

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If you want to go out of your way there are so many dive bars, you can just google and a million will pop up. I hope it takes you to The Dive on Maryland Ave.

Men.

Most everything I have covered involves being a little flirty. I am not telling you to sell yourself, I am telling you to treat people the way they ask to be treated. If a man thinks a few free drinks gets him whatever he wants then maybe it is up to you to teach him a lesson, maybe it’s not. But know that Las Vegas is crawling with security, let one know if a man makes you feel uncomfortable, they will watch him like a hawk for the rest of the night (if they don’t just kick him out). They take treating women well extremely seriously and will make it a top priority for you to feel safe.

I am not saying hooking up in Las Vegas is the worst idea, just don’t expect him to call, ever.