Sparks
Nugget Casino Resort
Sparks' landmark, with Interstate 80 running on a viaduct directly over the casino floor.
Sparks
Reno's twin city to the east — Victorian Square, the Nugget, and the venue for several of the region's biggest street festivals.
Sparks is a separate incorporated city, and the boundary between it and Reno is invisible on the ground. Locals treat the two as one metropolitan area; the distinction matters mainly for which city's events calendar you are reading.
Victorian Square is the centre of it, and it is the outdoor venue for some of the region's biggest events — the Best in the West Nugget Rib Cook-Off over Labor Day being the largest. The Nugget Casino Resort anchors the square and sponsors much of what happens on it.
The Nugget has one genuinely unusual feature: Interstate 80 runs on a viaduct directly over the casino floor.
Good for
- The Rib Cook-Off and Victorian Square festivals
- A quieter, cheaper base than downtown Reno
- Being near the Sparks Marina
Getting around
Victorian Square itself is walkable. Getting to downtown Reno is a fifteen-minute drive; it is not a walk.
Should you stay here?
A cheaper and quieter base than downtown Reno that is still fifteen minutes from it — and the right choice if you are here for Victorian Square, the Rib Cook-Off or anything at the Nugget. Rooms are typically less than equivalent downtown stock, which matters most during a peak Reno week.
What it costs you
- Fifteen minutes from downtown Reno by car, and not a walk. If your trip is centred on Reno, you will make that drive daily.
- Labor Day weekend is the tightest hotel week of the year here, because the Rib Cook-Off and the Burning Man exodus land together.
- Outside Victorian Square and the Marina it is suburban, and there is not much for a visitor.
Do you need a car?
Yes. Victorian Square itself is walkable, but everything else — including all of Reno — is a drive.
When it is at its best
Event-driven rather than continuous. Victorian Square is extraordinary during a festival weekend and quiet the rest of the time; the Nugget runs at casino hours regardless.