Lake Charles has hit national TV screens being touted as a vacation “dupe” for Las Vegas.
On Monday, the "Today Show" featured a segment on “underrated travel destinations, so that you can get away without breaking the bank,” with travel expert Mark Ellwood pitching four locations. One of them was Louisiana’s own Lake Charles.
“The idea behind all of these is dupe destinations,” Ellwood said. “It’s not a counterfeit, but if you see an expensive lotion and you think, ‘you know what, I can get a really good version of that, a lot cheaper,’ that's what we've done with travel.”
Ellwood included Lake Charles as one of four locations in the segment, framing it as an alternative to going to Las Vegas.
"(Lake Charles) has that same format (as Las Vegas) - we're saying resort pools, tall towers, entertainment, Gladys Knight, Baby Face, name brand restaurants like Gordon Ramsay Steak," Ellwood said. "You've got everything you had in Vegas, plus this sort of Cajun Bayou Creole overlay, which to me is a little extra je ne sais quoi."
There are two casinos and resorts right next to each other in Lake Charles, Golden Nugget and L’Auberge. Just across the bridge in Westlake, there is another, the Horseshoe.
Lake Charles was a part of the list alongside Grand Junction, Colorado, as an alternate for Moab, Utah; Fredericksburg, Texas, as a dupe for Cotswold in England; and Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, instead of Napa Valley, California.