Las Vegas is a great town, it’s great not only for gamblers but also for vacationers in general. One thing I will warn first time visitors though is that Las Vegas, despite their marketing efforts in recent years, really is not a family vacation choice. If you have kids that are minors, you should probably wait until your children or older or take a “mom and dad only vacation”. As adults many of us will see gambling as the main attraction of the town. That is indeed true, but there is so much more to Las Vegas you should take the time to experience the town and get away from the gambling floor.
My first suggestion is to go and visit all the hotels on the strip. The money that all the gamblers have lost in this town can be seen in the design of the hotels. These are not your typical cookie cutter types. The Venetian has a canal with gondola’s in it, the Excalibur has a castle design and theme, there is the Luxor with it’s Egyptian design, the Rio with it’s Mardi Gras theme, along with the overall extravagance of many of the other hotels. I strongly encourage you to take at least one or two afternoons and split the strip in half, visiting half the hotels each day. Walk around the hotels, take photos, do the typical tourist things you would do in other resort towns that sometimes you forget to do in Las Vegas.
Speaking of the hotels, many of them are also fine dining destinations. Many celebrity chefs have created restaurants in Las Vegas as they know they have a captive audience in that area when they are on vacation. These restaurants are all good choices, but do your research. There are also many theme restaurants that are very entertaining, as well as hotels with unusual cuisine. Yes, there are the stereotyped buffets in Las Vegas too, but my suggestion would be on your first trip to avoid these as much as possible. If you really must try one, use lunch as the meal to try a buffet as the cost will be lower and quite often the food selections will be similar if not the same as the ones you would find at dinner.
At night the town of Las Vegas truly comes to life. This is a good time to visit Old Las Vegas by going to view the “Freemont Street Experience. This includes many of the older hotels and a light display above the entire street on the hour four times during the evening. When returning from Freemont Street make sure you take a cab ride down the strip. There you can see all the signs and colors of the strip while saving your feet some precious strength. Keep in mind though this can be pricier than you think as the cab rate will still run even when stopped in traffic.
My final suggestion for first timers visiting Las Vegas is to make sure you take in a show. Some shows will have tickets costing over $100 each, while others can be as low as $10. It all depends on the type of show you wish to see. There are extravagant stage shows, revue type shows, comedy shows, celebrity entertainers, and just your average lounge act as well. Some of the more famous shows include Cirque Du Soleil, Blue Man Group, Lance Burton, Celine Dion, etc.
There are some items as first timers you can afford to miss as well. If you are planning on returning another time in the future, I would save day trips out of town for a future trip. There are some nice ones, but on your first time in Las Vegas you want to spend as much time in town as you can. Also don’t worry about the clubs, do your gambling at night instead when they are the busiest. Many clubs at night have very large cover charges of $20 to $30. As far as I’m concerned it’s never worth that cost just to get in when you can use the same money for a decent meal for a couple combined. Overall there are a lot of options for your time when you visit Las Vegas. For first timers I strongly suggest spending your time getting an overall feel of Las Vegas. Don’t choose options that will take a large portion of your time if you are limited to only a couple day stay on your visit. Remember, part of the fun of visiting Las Vegas is planning your next trip on the flight home!
