Red Roof Inn Las Vegas

Situated directly across from theHard Rock Hotel-- home to some of the most popular clubs and music venues in Vegas -- the Comfort Inn Las Vegas is on a less popular four-lane highway called Paradise Road, which is mostly filled with strip malls, fast food joints, and plenty of traffic. There are popular restaurants within a five- to 15-minute walk of the hotel, such as a P.F. Chang's and a number of steakhouses -- Del Frisco's, Ruth's Chris, Gordon Biersch, and Morton's. In addition, there's a CVS pharmacy across the street (a three-minute walk from the hotel). But if you choose to walk, know that you're probably going to be the only person on the sidewalk.

Just outside the bright lights, bawdy shows, and grandiose structures, there's a Vegas that stretches beyond that dense, 3.5-mile-long line of hotel-casinos on Las Vegas Boulevard, known as theStrip. Slightly removed from the incessant hustle are a number of hotels -- located anywhere from a five-minute walk to a five- to 10-minute taxi or shuttle ride from the center of the action -- that offer closer proximity to theLas Vegas Convention Center, a quieter night's sleep, or, at times, a bit more bang for the buck.

But the downside to anyoff-the-Stripproperty is -- you guessed it -- its distance from the Strip. Walking under the Nevada sun is no easy feat, and many of these hotels are surrounded by long, shadeless roads and empty lots. Some hotels offer a shuttle service to the Strip during the day, but you're likely to get stuck taking cab after cab if you want to drink and dine and play on the Strip all night -- and that can get expensive quick.

• Free hotel shuttle to the center of theStrip, the Convention Center, and the airport from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
• Five-minute drive from McCarran International Airport
• Five-minute drive from the casinos, performances, incredible restaurants, nightclubs, and designer shopping on theStrip
• Free on-site parking

• Standard rooms are a comfortable size -- nothing too big, but not too small -- and have either one king-size bed or two double beds.
• Kitchenette in all rooms -- a mini-fridge, microwave, two-burner electric stove, and a coffeemaker
• Free Wi-Fi
• Old, 27-inch tube TV
• Smoking rooms available