Featuring scantily clad characters and silly plots, this guilty pleasure is fast-paced and fun. It will leave you feeling dirty the next morning but it’s definitely worth watching!
The best time to see the Strip is at night when it glows with millions of neon lights. The glitzy casinos look even more over-the-top and larger than life.
The Strip
The Strip is a four-mile stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard lined with hotels that have been designed to impress. Whether you’re looking to get up close and personal with the Eiffel Tower (in the Paris hotel) or to peer out over the city from 46 stories up at The STRAT, this is one of the most famous and fun walkable stretches in the world.
Many of the casinos are more than just gambling floors, featuring restaurants from fast food to high-end, as well as live music and comedy shows. The soaring choreographed Fountains of Bellagio are a highlight and the High Roller observation wheel offers a spectacular view from the air. The Strip really comes alive at night, though. It’s a popular spot for after-hours entertainment and is always hopping before home games for the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights. The street also hosts a free concert series and a psychedelic light show at the Fremont Experience.
The City
Originally, the city spread across a broad, arid valley of desert grasses and springs (hence its name). Canyon petroglyphs attest to human presence in the area for more than 10,000 years.
Mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel opened the Flamingo Hotel Casino in 1946, attracting celebrities like Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack cronies. By 1954, the city was averaging 8 million visitors a year. Money from organized crime combined with funds from more respectable sources, such as Wall Street banks and union pension funds.
Today, shrewd entrepreneurship and permissive state laws have transformed the desert town into a vast entertainment mecca known simply as Vegas. But beyond the dazzling Strip, this is a perfectly ordinary Western city, with neighborhoods, churches, and shopping centres. The city also draws companies that specialize in bail, marriage, divorce, taxes, and incorporation services. Educational opportunities include the College of Southern Nevada, UNLV, and for-profit private Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts.
The Mob Museum
If you’re looking for a place to learn the dark side of Vegas history, head to the Mob Museum. Set in a former federal courthouse that was home to famous mob hearings arranged by senator Estes Kefauver, this world class museum tells the story of organized crime and those dedicated to fighting it through four floors of interactive exhibits and immersive experiences.
Guests will enjoy the stories of notorious gangsters such as Al Capone, Bugsy Siegel and John Gotti. They’ll also discover the efforts of dedicated law enforcement agents like J. Edgar Hoover, Eliot Ness and Harry Anslinger to quell the rise of organized crime in the United States and around the globe.
Guests can also visit The Underground, an interactive space that winks back to Prohibition through a working distillery and speakeasy. There’s even a Crime Lab, where visitors can try their hand at forensic work. Note that access to the Crime Lab requires an upgraded Museum Experience ticket.
The Entertainment Capital of the World
The world-famous Las Vegas Strip is a major center for gambling, shopping and entertainment. It is also known for its shows and restaurants.
It is a city that changes dramatically between day and night. In the hot summer sun it can be brutal to walk along the strip, but come evening the Strip comes alive with lights and music.
For a change of scenery you can escape the casinos and smoke and stroll through The Arts District or visit the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art on the UNLV campus. This free museum offers a rotating collection of fine and ancient art.
If you’re into electronic dance music then Wet Republic at the MGM Grand hotel is a must. This hotel pool party has attracted many famous DJs.