How We Research

How a place gets on the site

We start from what grown-up travellers actually ask for (rooftops, live music that isn't a club, supper clubs, great food, shows, casinos with a mature crowd, spas and day trips) and build a shortlist for each city. Each candidate is then checked against its official website, its ticketing page or a reputable local publication for what it is, where it is, its price level, its age policy and how booking works.

We record the source link and the month we checked it on every venue card. In September 2026 that meant 48 places in Las Vegas, 22 places in New Orleans, 17 places in Nashville, 21 places in Chicago.

What we deliberately leave out

• Exact opening hours and prices, which change constantly. We describe price tiers and tell you to confirm.
• Specific concert or show dates we can't source. Where a schedule matters, we link to the official calendar.
• Star ratings and review counts. We don't reproduce other sites' reviews or invent our own.
• Photos we don't have the rights to use.

The sources we trust

In order of preference: the venue's own website or its booking page (Resy, OpenTable, Tock, SevenRooms), official ticketing and tourism pages (for example the Bureau of Reclamation for Hoover Dam or the Bureau of Land Management for Red Rock Canyon), and established local publications and TV news for recent openings, closures and renovations. Review aggregators are useful to spot a closure, but we never quote their ratings.

How the planner uses this research

The trip planner only ever draws from this checked list. Each place is tagged by neighbourhood, price tier, how loud it gets, the time of day it works best and how booking works, so the planner can build evenings that are close together and suit your pace.

Closures and changes

Cities change fast. During our September 2026 checks we removed several places other lists still recommend, for example a Las Vegas cocktail bar replaced by a new lounge, a Chicago bar that closed after building damage and a Las Vegas show that ended its run. Temporary closures (like a rooftop under renovation) are flagged on the card rather than silently dropped.

Spotted something out of date? Email support@dixonappstudio.com and we'll check it.