Historical Donut Walking Tour to Launch in Las Vegas

Posted on: November 8, 2022, 01:21h. 

Last updated on: November 8, 2022, 04:38h.

Corey Levitan Read More

Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Las Vegas Myths.

If you love historical walking tours but hate their lack of saturated fat and sugar, then Las Vegas has the perfect new attraction. Sin City will soon launch the 12th Underground Donut Tour in the US.

This new attraction will shuttle patrons among four donut shops in downtown Las Vegas, primarily around the arts district, according to a company press release. Along the way, participants will get a guided tour of historical sites, including Fremont Street, the Ferguson Motel (an abandoned 1940s motel converted into residential and retail space), and hopefully, not the cardiac unit at University Medical Center.

Americans eat more than 10 billion donuts per year, according to the Simmons National Consumer Survey, despite the advice of their doctors to cut down to 8 billion.

“Everybody knows about the casinos, the nightlife, and the shows of Las Vegas. But there’s a lot of amazing local donut shops that need to be highlighted, and that’s why we’re here,” the press release quotes Jeff Woelker, who founded the Underground Donut Tour in Chicago.

The Historical Donut

Donuts have an interesting history that it’s possible to learn without going off your diet. Let’s give it a try … Balls of fried cake dough originated in Arabia and spread into northern Europe in the 1400s. The first deep-fried cake shop in the US was opened on Manhattan’s lower Broadway by a Dutch immigrant named Anna Joralemon in 1673. And it was Maine mariner Captain Hanson Crockett Gregory who, as a 16-year-old in 1847, is credited with creating the first modern donut. He cut a hole in the center, giving the dough a more even fry.

Oh, now you want a Las Vegas donut even more? OK, well, Taja Wilder, the company’s Las Vegas tour manager, is ready to take you around, according to the press release.

We’re really excited to show off the Arts District and share how the local community and Las Vegas are working to reshape and revitalize the downtown district – not to mention eat a bunch of delicious donuts along the way,” she said.

The Underground Donut Tour also operates donut walking tours in New York City (Manhattan and Brooklyn), Philadelphia, Chicago, Portland, Seattle, Boston, Nashville, Miami, New Orleans, and Washington DC – none of which actually venture underground, by the way.

How to Sign Up

Las Vegas tours will begin Friday, November 11 and operate at 10 a.m. every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, year-round. Tickets are $40 for adults and $25 for children 10 and under through undergrounddonuttour.com. The tastings are included in the tour price.

If you’re thinking that all the walking on this tour will burn off the donuts you consume, you might want to walk to and from your hotel, too – and possibly even the airport. Working off each 400-calorie treat will require walking a brisk 3.5 mph for 80 minutes, according to bodylineclinic.com.