Vegas Lie a Local

Vegas Like a Local: Places and Points of Interest

A Glossary of Local Names for Las Vegas Places

Maps provide names for places and landmarks, but they don’t let visitors in on local secrets, like what those names might mean or the alternative monikers favored by residents. Here is an incomplete list of some of the names locals use in Las Vegas for neighborhoods, streets, and points of interest. If you’d like to add to this list, please leave a comment!

D.I.: Desert Inn Road. The hotel Howard Hughes owned and once called home no longer exists, but the memory lives on in the street name.

Glitter Gulch: Now known as “The Fremont Street Experience” or, more casually, just “Fremont Street,” You’ll still hear long-time Las Vegans refer to these casino-lined blocks as “Glitter Gulch.” In the same breath (more…)

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This Little Piggy

The piggy bank pictured above is not large, not beautiful, and not even serviceable. The slot on its back intended to accept coins is too narrow. It wasn’t too narrow when I bought the pig many years ago in the central market in San José, Costa Rica. I was grocery shopping with my mother, which sounds like a mundane task, but in that huge and bustling market, it was anything but. In addition to heaps of bananas, piles of papayas, baskets of green coconuts, women making tortillas, and men whacking up sides of freshly slaughtered beef, there were parrots and monkeys and fish. (more…)

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