Three days in Las Vegas: go for the desert, stay for the fake volcano

Two nights in the Mojave: an evening walking the Strip, a day downtown with the mob and the dead neon, and a morning in a canyon half an hour from the roulette.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Las Vegas
Places
9 across 3 days
OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap

Las Vegas is a city that exists because of a railway water stop, a dam and a change in Nevada's gambling law in 1931, and it has been rebuilding itself every fifteen years since. Nothing here is old and almost nothing is real, which is either the objection or the entire point.

The trick to enjoying it, whether or not you gamble, is to treat the Strip as architecture rather than as a night out. Four miles of buildings competing to be more preposterous than each other is a genuinely interesting walk, and the best of the free spectacle costs nothing at all.

Then get off it. The old downtown, a few miles up Las Vegas Boulevard, is the scruffier and more interesting city, and twenty miles west there is a canyon of red sandstone that most visitors never see. Three days does the Strip in one evening, downtown in a day, and the desert in a morning.

Highlights

  • A thousand fountains on a false lake, going off to music every fifteen minutes, for free
  • A field of dead neon signs from casinos that were demolished decades ago
  • The courtroom where the Senate held its televised hearings on organised crime in 1950
  • Red sandstone cliffs thirty minutes from the roulette wheel, and almost nobody on them
  • The Strip after midnight, which is when the buildings stop pretending to be daytime

Where to stay

Las Vegas, two nights

About 650,000 people live in the city and over two million in the valley, and roughly forty million visitors a year come through, which is the ratio that explains everything about the place.

Stay on the Strip for a first visit; walking home is the main thing you are buying. The middle section around Bellagio and Caesars puts the most within reach. Downtown is much cheaper, has the older casinos with lower table minimums, and is a taxi ride from everything else.

Day by day

Day 1 in Las Vegas

The Strip, on foot, after dark

The Strip is best in the evening and worst in the middle of a summer afternoon, so give it the first night and start at the southern end.

The Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign stands on a median in the middle of the road below the last of the casinos, put up in 1959 and designed by a woman who never copyrighted it, which is why it is on everything. Ten minutes, including the wait.

Then walk north. The fountains at the Bellagio go off every half hour in the afternoon and every fifteen minutes in the evening, over a thousand nozzles on an artificial lake, choreographed to music. It is free, it lasts a few minutes, and it is the best piece of spectacle in the city. Watch it twice.

Carry on to the observation wheel behind the Flamingo, which is 550 feet high and was the tallest in the world when it opened in 2014. One revolution runs about thirty minutes and the cabins hold up to forty people. Go at dusk, when the lights come on underneath.

After that, wander. The Venetian's canals, the conservatory inside the Bellagio, the aquarium and the shark tank at the southern end, the sphere lit up to the east. None of it is real and all of it is free to look at.

  1. 17:00

    Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign

    Other

    It has its own small car park on the southbound side, which is the only sane way to reach it. Free, and the queue moves quickly.

  2. 18:30

    Fountains of Bellagio

    Other

    Free, every fifteen minutes after eight in the evening. Watch from the railing on the Strip, then again from a higher floor of the shopping arcade opposite. Cancelled in high wind.

  3. 19:30

    Dinner off the main drag

    Eat

    The buffets are a Vegas institution and largely a nostalgic one now. Better value is one street back from the Strip on Spring Mountain Road, which is Chinatown and has some of the best food in Nevada.

  4. 21:15

    High Roller

    Other

    Half an hour a revolution, 550 feet up, with the whole valley on one side and the mountains on the other. There is a cabin with a bar in it for more money. Book online; the queue on the night is long.

With more time: The tower standing on its own above the top of the Strip is the tallest observation tower in the country at 1,149 feet, and there are rides bolted to the top of it that push you out over the edge. It is a much better view than the wheel and a considerably worse idea.

Day 2 in Las Vegas

Downtown: the mob, the dead neon and a canopy of lights

Downtown is where Las Vegas actually started, well beyond the top of the Strip, and it is the better half of the city for anybody who is not here to gamble.

The Mob Museum is in the 1933 federal courthouse and post office, and it is very good indeed. The building is not incidental: the Senate committee on organised crime held one of its televised hearings in the courtroom upstairs, and the room is preserved. Three floors cover the rise of the syndicates, the FBI, the Vegas skim and the modern trade, with a great deal of primary material including the wall from the St Valentine's Day massacre.

The Neon Museum is ten minutes north and is the thing to book. It is a fenced lot holding the signs of casinos that no longer exist, laid out in rows, rusted and unlit, from the Stardust and the Silver Slipper and the Moulin Rouge. Visits are by timed ticket and the evening slots have some of the signs relit, which is worth the extra.

Then Fremont Street, which was the original casino strip and is now covered by a canopy of screens five blocks long that plays a light show on the hour after dark. Below it, the old casinos still have low table minimums and a rougher crowd than anywhere on the Strip. There is a zip line down the middle of it, which tells you what kind of street it now is.

Eat in the container village at the eastern end, then walk back under the canopy.

  1. 10:00

    Mob Museum

    Culture

    Two to three hours and worth every minute. Do the courtroom on the second floor first. There is a speakeasy and a distillery in the basement with a separate entrance round the back.

  2. 13:00

    Lunch downtown

    Eat

    The blocks around Fremont East have the independent places: tacos, ramen, a couple of decent bakeries. The old casino coffee shops still do a very cheap steak at odd hours.

  3. 14:30

    Neon Museum

    Culture

    Guided timed tours only, booked well ahead. Choose an evening slot if you can: some of the signs are relit and the boneyard at dusk is the photograph everybody wants.

  4. 17:00

    Container Park

    Other

    An open-air block of shops and bars built out of shipping containers, with a praying mantis at the entrance that shoots fire after dark. Free, and a good place to sit for an hour.

  5. 19:00

    Fremont Street Experience

    Landmark

    Five covered blocks of old casinos, buskers and a screen the size of the street that runs a light show every hour once it is dark. Free, loud and full. Stay for one show and one drink.

With more time: The Mormon fort a few blocks north is the oldest building in Nevada, put up in 1855 by missionaries who lasted two years before giving up on the site. It costs a few dollars and takes half an hour, and it is the only pre-casino thing left in the city.

Day 3 in Las Vegas

Red Rock Canyon, twenty miles and another world

The last morning goes west, which almost nobody bothers to do and which is the best few hours of the three days.

Red Rock Canyon is about twenty miles from the Strip and is a wall of Aztec sandstone banded red and cream, with a thirteen mile one-way scenic loop running along the base of it. The drive takes half an hour without stopping and three hours with, and there are short trails off it at almost every pull-in: a slot canyon, a seasonal waterfall, petroglyphs, and a lot of desert bighorn if you are lucky.

Go at opening. The loop takes timed entry reservations in the busy months, the light on the cliffs is best early, and by eleven in summer it is genuinely too hot to walk.

On the way back, the Springs Preserve sits on the site of the artesian springs that were the only reason anybody stopped here in the first place, and it explains the desert, the water and the improbability of this city better than anything else in it.

Then the airport, fifteen minutes from almost anywhere, or the drive on towards Zion or the Grand Canyon.

  1. 07:00

    Red Rock Canyon

    Other

    Per-car entry fee, and timed reservations are required for the loop from October to May. Go at opening. Take more water than you think and do not start a trail after ten in summer.

  2. 11:00

    Springs Preserve

    Other

    Gardens, a desert living centre and a museum about how the valley got its water, on the site of the original springs. Two hours, mostly indoors and air conditioned.

  3. 13:30

    A last cheap steak

    Eat

    The old downtown casinos still run the loss-leading late-night steak and the shrimp cocktail that used to cost fifty cents. It is not good food. It is the correct last meal here.

With more time: With another day, the Hoover Dam is forty minutes southeast and the tour goes down inside the wall into the generator hall, and Valley of Fire, an hour northeast, is emptier and redder than Red Rock and has better petroglyphs.

Before you go

Getting in

Harry Reid International sits at the southern end of the Strip, ten minutes from almost every hotel on it, which is unusually convenient. Almost every American city flies here directly and often cheaply, because the hotels want you to come.

Driving in is easy too: Los Angeles is four hours southwest, the Grand Canyon four and a half hours east, and Zion two and a half hours northeast, which is why a great many people use this city as the start or end of a Southwest loop.

Getting around

The Strip is four miles long and looks walkable and is not; a single block between two casinos can be a fifteen minute walk because the buildings are enormous and set back. There is a monorail on the eastern side, a bus running the length of it, and pedestrian bridges at the major junctions.

Downtown sits four miles further north again. The bus takes half an hour, a taxi ten minutes. Hire a car only for the day you go out to the canyon.

What things actually cost

Rooms are cheap and the extras are not. Nearly every casino charges a compulsory nightly resort fee on top of the advertised rate, plus parking, and the cash machines charge to dispense money. Read the total before you book, because the advertised price is rarely the price.

The free entertainment is genuinely good: the fountains, the conservatory, the volcano, the canal singers, the lobby of most of the big hotels. You can spend an evening on the Strip and buy nothing but a drink.

When to come

March to May and October to November. Summer here regularly passes 40 degrees and the heat between eleven and five is not something to walk around in; winter is mild in the day and genuinely cold after dark in the desert.

Weekends are twice the price of weekdays and the big trade conventions can triple it, so check what is on before booking. A Tuesday in this city costs a fraction of a Saturday.

Las Vegas is easy to be sniffy about and it does not care, which is a quality worth respecting in a city. What it is genuinely good at is spectacle, and spectacle here is mostly free.

Spend the money on a hire car and drive west on the last morning.

Or make it a longer trip

These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Is Las Vegas worth three days if I do not gamble?
Two is probably right, plus the canyon. The Strip is one very good evening, downtown is a full day with two genuinely strong museums, and the desert is a morning. What three days will not sustain is repeatedly walking the same four miles.
Where should I stay, the Strip or downtown?
The Strip for a first visit, because the point is being able to walk home. Downtown is roughly half the price, has the older casinos and lower table minimums, and is ten minutes away by taxi. Check the resort fee either way; it is charged nightly on top of the room.
Do I need a car?
Only for the desert day. The Strip and downtown are covered by buses, the monorail and taxis, and parking at the casinos is now usually charged. Hire for one day, or take a tour out to the canyon.
Can I do the Grand Canyon as a day trip?
The South Rim is four and a half hours each way, which makes a fifteen hour day for two hours at the edge. The West Rim on tribal land is closer but is not the national park and charges accordingly. If the canyon matters to you, drive out and stay a night.
How bad is the summer?
Regularly over 40 degrees, and it does not cool much after dark in July. Everything indoors is aggressively air conditioned, which makes the contrast worse. If you come in summer, do the outdoor things before nine and after eight.
Is the food any good?
Very, at both ends. The celebrity restaurants on the Strip are genuinely accomplished and priced accordingly. The real find is Spring Mountain Road, a mile west of the Strip, which is a Chinatown with Sichuan, Korean, Thai and Japanese places open until three in the morning at a quarter of the price.