Visiting Las Vegas is on the bucket list of many people. If you are wondering if there is more to the Sin City other than casinos, sex, food, and extravagantly designed attractions, this piece is for you.
There are museums all over the world. But there are 3 museums in Vegas that are like no other.
However before we dive into discussing these hidden gems you should visit in Vegas, ensure that you are well prepared and have all you need. Most importantly, ensure you sort out your ESTA so as to be eligible to enter the United States if you are visiting from a country covered in the Visa Waiver Program.
Here are the 3 must-visit museum that provides something different from the usual Sin City experience:
National Atomic Testing Museum
It’s an open secret that any kind of vice imaginable is available in Vegas for the right price. However, there is something even more sinister about this isolated desert.
The desert provided a perfect place to carry out nuclear tests, and most of the iconic photos that marked the nuclear era in the 1950s were taken in the Nevada Test Site.
The NTS is today called the Nevada National Security Site and it’s about 65 miles northwest of the neon-lit Las Vegas Strip.
Most visitors to Las Vegas rarely have the time to explore the unbelievable architectures of the casinos and hotels, countless parks and attractions, and the traditional Vegas offering (not exactly traditional outside Vegas). Even those with a taste for history are usually more concerned about its mobster and gangster soaked history.
However, if you have any interest in the history of the nuclear program and its effect on Vegas, the National Atomic Testing Museum is a must-see. It houses over 12,000 artifacts and tells an in-depth story of the nuclear era.
Spy on the Mob
Organized crime in Las Vegas is not a well-guided secret. If you want to dig in deep on the whole secret, separate facts from fiction, and understand some of the sordid affairs that happened in Las Vegas, the Mob Museum is the place to be.
Among its stunning artifact is the barber’s chair Albert Anastasia, boss of Inc., was sitting when he was murdered. The brick wall from St. Valentine day Chicago massacre is on display.
The Mob Museum is domiciled in a courthouse where one of the formal hearings into the organised crime activity by the US Senate committee took place. The Kefauver Hearings, as it is called, investigated the role of the organized crime syndicate in interstate commerce. It’s part of what can be studied at the Mob Museum and helps in understanding the history of this city.
And when you’re through surfing through these incredible artifacts, you can visit the Mob Bar across the street for a taste of the prohibition-era cocktail.
Neon Museum
The Neon Museum could only have existed in Las Vegas. It’s an enormous outdoor homage of signs that once adorned the hotel and casinos of Vegas. It’s off the Las Vegas Strip and is easily accessible. It’s a great place to meet locals and learn what Vegas used to be before the high-tech innovations and attractions that now envelop the city.
It’s easy to get lost in the Strip. But if you don’t get off the strip, you technically haven’t visited Las Vegas because the Strip is actually located in Paradise, Nevada.
There are lots of other Museums to visit in Las Vegas but these museums give you something unusual you can’t find anywhere else on the planet.
