Meet Las Vegas locals, not people passing through.

The oldest freestanding bar in the city sits far enough east on Fremont that most visitors stop short of it, which is exactly why locals keep using it. The room is dim and quiet enough to actually hear each other — the whole point when the person across from you just came off a shift and has been talked at all night.

The patio out front is the good seat in cool months, and the Mob Museum and Container Park are a few blocks away if the night keeps going.

Every sign in the yard once hung over a casino that no longer exists, which hands two people a shared subject and something to point at the whole way through. The yard is entirely open to the sky, so summer visits move to after dark — a late start that comes from the place itself rather than from someone's shift.

It is a Downtown date — quick from Fremont East or the Arts District, a real drive from Summerlin or Anthem — and the walk is short enough for a first meeting.

Almost nothing here works the same in July as it does in January; this does, because all of it is indoors and cooled. Two floors of exhibits hand two strangers a shared subject to argue about instead of taking turns on the usual questions, and the building itself, a 1930s federal courthouse, is older than nearly everything this city is known for.

There is a bar in the basement, so the evening can move from exhibit to drink without moving the car or making a second parking decision.

Directions to this place always start with the giant steel praying mantis out front, even from people who have never gone inside. Walking in costs nothing, so neither of you has spent money before deciding whether you like the other, and the three stacked levels around the lawn give you a reason to keep moving instead of sitting across a table.

Open to the sky, which makes spring and fall its real seasons; in midsummer the lawn stays hot long after sunset.

Sitting almost dead center in the valley, it is one of the rare places that is the same drive for someone in Summerlin as it is for someone in Henderson, and when a first date starts with an argument about whose side of town to meet on, that settles it. Desert gardens, shaded paths and indoor galleries sit on one campus, so the conversation can keep walking for hours.

The outdoor half only really works from about October through April, or first thing in the morning; the galleries stay comfortable the rest of the year.

Half an hour walks the whole loop, and nobody has bought a ticket to get in, so a first meeting can end at the parking lot without either of you having committed to an evening. It sits deep in Henderson, so it is the obvious pick when one of you lives on the Green Valley side, and a real ask when neither of you does.

One of the few places here that is better in winter than in summer, and easy to pair with something else on the Henderson side.

This one belongs to the west side: from Summerlin it is a short run out Charleston, and from Henderson it is close to an hour each way, which is worth settling before either of you agrees to it. The scenic loop runs one way with pullouts the whole length, so you can talk in the car, stop when something is worth stopping for, and leave early without a scene.

Cool months are the good ones out here, and entry to the scenic drive is managed then, so locals plan it a few days out rather than deciding that morning.

In a desert valley, the only dependable open water is water the city has already used, and this preserve sits where that water runs east toward Lake Mead, which is why the cottonwoods sit at the low end of town. The trail is flat and paved for about three miles, and the scenery does enough work that a lull in the conversation does not feel like one.

Dogs and bikes stay out of the preserve, which keeps it slow and quiet; an easy one from Henderson or the southeast, a haul from Summerlin.

Machines in this town are built to take your money; these are run by a nonprofit that gives its surplus away, which is why locals are protective of it. Standing side by side at a game removes the eye-contact pressure a first meeting usually forces, and it sits in its own building south of the resorts, so you park and walk in without crossing a casino floor.

The kind of place that still works when a swing shift ends, and the machines run on coins, so come with a few.