Cheyenne, Wyoming, Is on Its Technique to Turning into the ‘Nashville of the West’ — and It is A lot Extra Reasonably priced, Too

There’s a motive Nashville, Tennessee, is a mecca for bachelor and bachelorette events. At a excessive degree, it’s a spot that caters to the theatricality related to nation music — cowboy boots, sequins, and raucous nights within the honky-tonks on Broadway. Guests can placed on their denim, don a cowboy hat, and embrace a light-hearted facet of Music Metropolis, if just for a weekend.

Town additionally has a various tradition centered round artwork, trend, and the meals and beverage world, catering to teams of vacationers with quite a lot of pursuits. Your itinerary can embody all the pieces from music festivals, barbecue dinners, and customised denim appointments to brewery hopping, historical past museums, and excursions of the totally different neighborhoods’ most photographed murals.

Whereas Nashville stays one of many high cities for pre-wedding celebrations and journey basically — even grabbing a spot on Journey + Leisure’s record of finest U.S. cities within the 2024 World’s Greatest Awards — affordability is an element for guests to think about. Relying on the season, most vacationers ought to count on to pay wherever from $200 to $500 per night time for a three-star resort in downtown Nashville. In line with Brides, a bachelorette get together might simply value people as much as $600 for a three-day celebration; although Nashville Luxurious Keep estimates even increased after breaking down the value of lodging, meals, and actions. Fortunately, there’s a extra wallet-friendly, much less populated different to think about. Cheyenne, Wyoming is an roughly 65,000-person metropolis that, in some ways, has an analogous attraction to Nashville.

The capital of the Cowboy State, Cheyenne has an imitable id deeply tied to the Previous West, one which’s been nurtured because the railroad arrived in 1867 and solidified by way of town’s legendary function within the rodeo world. Cheyenne Frontier Days, the world’s largest outside rodeo, happens each July, bringing nation music’s greatest stars, skilled bull riders, and an entire host of celebrations to city. The Daddy of ‘Em All rodeo isn’t the one motive to plan a visit to this a part of Wyoming, although.

Over the previous couple of years, Cheyenne has grown and developed in quite a lot of areas that create a pure comparability to Nashville — all whereas retaining a comparatively inexpensive value per go to.

Total Affordability

Accommodations are sometimes the costliest side of a bunch journey to Nashville, particularly if the plan is to remain at certainly one of downtown’s most sought-after properties. This isn’t the case in Cheyenne, the place most resort choices value lower than $100 per room per night time. Positive, a majority of Cheyenne’s properties are run-of-the-mill finances chains, however an evening on the respected, conveniently situated Little America Lodge & Resort begins round $88 (although costs enhance throughout Cheyenne Frontier Days), giving budget-conscious vacationers a bit extra monetary leeway on the remainder of their journey. Moreover, Cheyenne has a variety of free issues for guests to do — lots of which we’ve outlined under.

Honky-tonks and Giant-scale Public Artwork

Renee Jelinek and her husband, Jon, have owned and operated companies — together with The Lincoln, a music venue in a historic theater — in downtown Cheyenne for greater than a decade, they usually’ve witnessed firsthand town’s growth, notably within the music scene. Stay music, she says, was a rarity; at the moment, yow will discover it practically daily of the week. “Guests used to return to Cheyenne for the Western tradition alone, however now we’re seeing [them] coming right here for a live performance and having fun with some Western tradition as a bonus, not as the aim,” she tells T+L.

Together with getting tickets to a present at The Lincoln, guests can take a look at the Outlaw Saloon — Cheyenne’s model of Robert’s Western World or Tootsie’s — or Bunkhouse Bar for stay music all through the week. Although Jelinek is hesitant to name Cheyenne a real “Nashville” simply but, she says the Wyoming metropolis has a “vibrant” tradition, showcasing “all the pieces from cowl bands to arena-level artists,” together with a rising variety of artists creating authentic music throughout genres. On the finish of the day, nation music might have a distinguished function in each locations, nevertheless it’s removed from the one sort of tunes locals and guests can take pleasure in.

The similarities in artwork and tradition between the 2 cities don’t finish with music. In reality, one of the crucial apparent likenesses makes a right away, colourful look to anybody exploring downtown Cheyenne: large-scale murals. Nashville has Kim Radford’s Dolly Parton mural and Kelsey Montague’s “What Lifts You” wings; Cheyenne has “Ladies’s Suffrage” by Chris Hoffmeister and Jordan Dean’s “The Buffalo Mural” and “Cheyenne,” the latter of which is a postcard-style murals that includes galloping purple horses. For a totally free group exercise, obtain the Uncover Downtown Cheyenne app to search out every mural and snap an image.

Photograph ops in Cheyenne prolong past murals. Town’s eight-foot-tall, hand-painted cowboy boots, greater than 30 in whole, first started popping up round city as a joint artwork undertaking between the Cheyenne Depot Museum Basis and the Downtown Growth Authority. As the gathering continues to develop, guests can study extra in regards to the items through a complimentary audio tour.

Customized Cowboy Hats, Western Put on, and Native Boutiques

When you’ve ever been a part of a Nashville bachelorette get together, there’s an opportunity somebody within the group requested a cease at Rustler Hat Co. or Planet Cowboy to design a cowboy hat, adopted by a go to to one of many metropolis’s many cowboy boot shops (Boot Nation or Nashville Boot Co.) for Nashville-appropriate footwear. Cheyenne has comparable choices, albeit on a smaller scale.

At Wild J Buying and selling, prospects can add their very own design aptitude to a hat within the type of pins, feathers, and different equipment. For cowboy boots, there’s the Cheyenne Boot Barn outpost, a group of traditional Western put on housed within the historic, three-story pink constructing generally known as The Wrangler. In contrast to Nashville, the place the most effective purchasing is unfold throughout neighborhoods, Cheyenne’s boutiques are all inside just a few blocks. Along with your new cowboy boots in tow, it’s only a quick stroll to regionally owned retailers Alexis Drake and Indigo Buffalo Turquoise.

Breweries and Distilleries

Cheyenne’s meals scene, whereas not fairly on Nashville’s culinary degree, is “on the rise,” says Juan Coronado, chef and co-owner of Railspur. “Within the final 5 to 10 years, extra specialty retailers and regionally owned eateries have flourished and introduced new and daring flavors to Cheyenne.” Town’s spectacular roster of locations to drink additionally falls into this class.

Cheyenne, like Nashville, has greater than a few locations to sip on a regionally brewed (or distilled) drink together with your journey crew. Coronado recommends Freedom’s Edge Brewing Firm for its “welcoming environment and award-winning microbrews,” and Pine Bluffs Distilling in a neighboring city. “It is good for giant teams, and it is a enjoyable pit cease after an extended journey. In addition they use all regionally grown grains of their whiskey,” he says. When you’d somewhat keep in Cheyenne, attempt Black Tooth Brewing Firm, Confederate Beer Firm, Chronicles Distilling, and the newly opened Westby Edge Brewing Firm. And don’t overlook to snag the free Daddy of the Malt Cross for drink offers at every cease.