In this paper, we propose an alternative version to the Laplace distribution which we named as “alternative Laplace distribution (ALD)” and discuss some of its important properties. A location-scale extension of the ALD is considered and the maximum likelihood estimation procedures for estimating its parameters is described. Further, the distribution is fitted to certain real life data sets for illustrating the utility of the model. A simulation study is carried out to examine the performance of likelihood estimators of the parameters of the distribution.