[dirty_old]

Let's say you're visiting a small city for 1 night, solo (and it's a weekday, aka sunday through wednesday, a slow / off night)... you want to give it your best shot to get a bang that night. You don't mess around with tinder/online bs or you had something pipelined but they flaked & it's 9pm...

Most bars are almost empty, no big clubs or anything (often clubs would only be open thurs/fri-sat).

What tips do you have / techniques would you use to have the best chance of success?

Of course each location is going to be different and top tier cities will have options every night. The challenge is finding the right spot/s

I've searched & found a lot of small tidbits in the travel forum, etc, but no specific post that covers this topic. I'm by no means an expert but want to get better. I'll post a few quick things that have helped for me & try to come back to post more & update

-look for live music
-hotel bars
-"_____" night (80's, reggae, salsa, karaoke, taco, whatever. fill in the blank)
-be the best dressed person in the room (optional)
-stake out late night street foot spots
-read any "local events" type newspapers, perhaps look online, facebook groups, etc, or ask girls about bars. Often there might be 1 or 2 spots that are "the place to be" on tue night, for example.


I'm trying to force myself out of the comfort zone more in these type of situations where mentally it's so easy to find reasons not to go out.

So ANY input greatly appreciated

[Black Caesar]

Been there done that while traveling for business and passing through some true middle of nowhere locales.

Hotel bar if there are people there can work.

Bounce around to a few spots and ask staff what the move is. Usually there are industry nights and other things they know about since they work weekends.

Basically you have to be social and talk to people for ideas otherwise you are just shooting in the dark hoping to stumble on something.

[Trent W.]

You got some very good tips.

I would add:
- Look up music/event venues, meaning places that regularly host events
- Check out meetup (the website), and see if there's anything going on

Furthermore, in my experience each city has a few bars that have decent traffic throughout the week. There is no way of knowing which ones they are unless you ask locals or simply go exploring.