Travelling Las Vegas
Before You Travel
Las Vegas, Nevada is a vibrant pulsating city and the largest adult playground in the world. It is a community that was created from the wastelands of the Mojave Desert in Nevada specifically to provide a gambling and entertainment oasis for the titillation seeking residents of post-war Los Angeles. Everything in Las Vegas has been done (or overdone) on a grand and spectacular scale. Along the Las Vegas strip, a black glass pyramid rises over a hundred meters above the desert with a larger than full sized replica of the Sphinx at its entry. Next to it, sits a larger than life castle with garishly colored turrets. Across the street, is a scaled-down skyline of New York City complete with a Brooklyn Bridge and a Statue of Liberty. Beyond that, you can see a half-sized replica of the Eifel Tower, a near full sized replica of the Piazza San Marco from Venice and a large volcano that erupts flames every thirty minutes. In Las Vegas, you often ask yourself, "Is this really a city, or am I visiting some futuristic amusement park on another planet?"
On any given evening in Las Vegas, you will find hundreds of entertainment events such as the renown Las Vegas stage shows, world class sporting events, performances by world famous entertainers plus music, dance and comedy at large and small venues throughout the city. This city never seems to sleep. The frivolity continues long into the night and the serious gamblers continue their pursuit of riches until well after the morning sun has risen on a new day.
The city was created by a reputed gangster
In 1931 gambling was legalized in the barren desert state of Nevada while it remained illegal in the more populous neighboring state of California. As early as 1940, the first hotel casino named El Rancho Vegas was constructed on the outskirts of a sleepy desert community in the Mojave Desert of southern Nevada known as Las Vegas. A second hotel casino named the Last Frontier was opened a year later. Both profited from their proximity to the large gambling population living in Los Angeles and other southern California communities. In December of 1946, Bugsy Siegal a reputed New York gangster, then living in Beverly Hills California, and managing various illegal gambling operations on the West Coast, built a lavish new hotel casino named the Flamingo. He dreamed of creating a whole new resort city in the desert dedicated to gambling and entertainment. Unfortunately, Bugsy was shot to death in his Beverly Hills home in 1947; so he never got to see his dream fulfilled; but the legacy of lavish hotel casinos controlled by gangsters persisted in Las Vegas for many decades to come.
Today, this desert gambling oasis is a thriving city with more than one million inhabitants and over 38 million visitors a year. It has fourteen of the fifteen largest hotels in the USA and over 130,000 rooms available to visitors. Gambling and entertainment are still its biggest attractions and its largest industries. Supposedly, all the mafia gangsters have been removed from the Las Vegas gambling scene, only to be replaced by large corporate owners. In 1999, Oscar Goodman, the flamboyant lawyer whose spirited defense of many reputed gangsters and criminals earned him the unofficial title of "mouthpiece for the mob", was elected mayor of Las Vegas. He seems to be a most appropriate character to lead the government of "Sin City" USA.
Las Vegas Boulevard "the Strip"
All the action is centered on one broad avenue that stretches from the southern fringe of the city northward for a dozen miles until it reaches the heart of old downtown. This is Las Vegas Boulevard, commonly known as "the Strip". McCarran International Airport is located adjacent to the southern end of the Strip, and nearly all of the major casinos are lined up along its sides. A drive down Las Vegas Boulevard takes you past the pyramid of Luxor casino, the skyline of New York casino, the Eifel Tower of Paris casino, the great tent of the Circus casino and the lofty tower of the Stratosphere casino. Eventually, it takes you to downtown Vegas and Fremont Street, home of the historic old gambling parlors like Binyons and the Golden Nugget. Just driving down the strip past all these spectacular casino resorts is a fantastic experience. At night, "the strip" comes alive with miles of colored neon and millions of dancing, pulsating lights.
Las Vegas Entertainment
Since the time of Bugsy Siegel, Las Vegas has been renowned not only for its gambling, but also for its free flowing liquor, its fine dining and its extravagant entertainment especially at the Las Vegas Shows. All these original ingredients are still available in even greater variety and quantity in modern-day Las Vegas.
The famous old Las Vegas Shows were typically variety shows featuring headline entertainment, well known bands, scantily-clad dancing girls and ribald humor. You can still find some of those shows on the Strip. The afternoon performances and the early evening performances are usually toned-down family-oriented presentations, while the late night performances are more adult oriented featuing nudity, risque humor and adult themes.
Some of the newer shows are even more extravagant productions than the old-time ones. Cirque du Soliel runs about a half dozen fabulous productions in Las Vegas including: Mystere, Ka, O, and Zumanity. Each production is set in an immense specially-constructed theater with fantastic sets and technological marvels. The prices are fairly expensive, but they are certainly amazing feats of entertainment.
At least two or more Broadway-style productions of musicals or plays are constantly featured in Las Vegas. There are a number of Las Vegas "regulars" playing at Casinos throughout the city, and new famous, world renown entertainers appear for limited engagements nearly every week. In addition to all this, there are free shows and free entertainments available at many of the casinos nearly every day. There is certainly no lack of entertaining diversions in this town.
Las Vegas Attractions
- Gambling is the biggest Las Vegas attraction:
Casinos and gambling are the main attractions in Las Vegas; but if you are not a gambler, you will still find plenty of entertainment in Vegas. The portion of Las Vegas Boulevard known as "The Strip" will amaze you with its incredible display of extravagance and glitz. Within a short distance, you can see an immense glass pyramid, a huge multicolored castle, a replica New York skyline complete with Statue of Liberty, a full-scale pirate cove, a fire-spewing volcano, a scale model Eifel Tower, miles of neon signs and billions of colored lights. Besides gambling, the casinos offer spectacular shows, plenty or free entertainment, a wide variety of restaurants and lots of shopping opportunities. If you have strong will power, you can wander into any casino, view all the wonderous sights, enjoy the free entertainment and not spend one dollar. Naturally, the casinos are betting that you will spend some money during your visit.
Gambling is everywhere in Las Vegas. As soon as you step off of the airplane, you will be greeted with the sounds of slot machines in the air terminal. Slot machines are located in nearly every gas station, convenience store, super market, Laundromat and bar. All through the city and suburbs and on into the small towns of Nevada you will find Poker Parlors and small, medium or large casinos.
- Entertainment is the second Las Vegas attraction
Entertainment is big business in Las Vegas with each of the major casinos offering one or more nightly shows. Some of the productions are spectacular extravaganzas with top quality talent including world famous singers, dancers and comedy acts. Compared to Broadway, Las Vegas is usually considered to be less serious but more glamorous, glitzy and spectacular. Originally, Las Vegas shows were known for their sexy productions with scantily-clad dancers, ribald comedy and bawdy acts.
Sex has also been a famous part of the Las Vegas scene. There are still many topless and nude dance shows in the city, but they are mostly in the adult entertainment clubs. Prostitution is legal in some parts of Nevada, but not in the city of Las Vegas. The legal brothels are located in some of the small Nevada towns not far from the city.
- The Strip and Freemont Street are spectacular at night
The Las Vegas Strip is the nickname applied to several miles of the southern part of Las Vegas Boulevard. This is the location of the biggest, most modern and most spectacular Casinos in Las Vegas. The scenery along this stretch of the boulevard is unbelievable. It looks like you have been transported into some gigantic fantasy world. At night, it sports an amazing display of colored lights.
Freemont Street, in downtown Vegas, has been converted into a pedestrian mall with a 90-foot high (30-meter) canopy providing shade from the hot desert sun. Musicians and street entertainers provide free entertainment day and night. After dark, 2.million lights in the canopy are used to create a wonderful display of animated color images known as the Freemont Street Experience.
Red Rocks National Park is located just 15 miles west of downtown. Hoover Dam and Lake Mead are about 30 miles (50 km) to the south. The Grand Canyon, one of the natural wonders of the world, is only about 100 miles (150 km) east of Las Vegas in northern Arizona; but it requires a 300 mile (500 km) drive to reach the South Rim visitor's center. Fortunately, there are many bus-tours, helicopter tours and airplane trips departing from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon every day.
Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon Park are located in southern Utah within four hours of driving. They offer a glimpse of the splendid western landscapes that you usually see in many cowboy movies.
Hoover Dam is located about 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas on Highway 93. It straddles the Colorado River at Black Canyon, a deep narrow defile on the border between the states of Nevada and Arizona. It was originally called Boulder Dam, and the nearby city of Boulder, Nevada was created to house the workers building this amazing wonder of engineering. You can easily drive to Boulder City and Hoover Dam from Las Vegas in less than one hour.
Hoover Dam is one of the largest dams in the world. It is 726 feet high (232 m) and 1244 feet long (379 m). It impounds the waters of the largest reservoir in the USA, Lake Mead. It is worth seeing.
- Lake Meadis the largest reservoir in the USA
Lake Mead is 115 miles long (185 km), 1 to 8 miles wide (1.6km to 12km) and covers 247 square miles (640 sq km). It has over 550 miles of shoreline (885 km). The Lake Mead National Recreation Area includes Lake Mead but also contains much of the desert landscape surrounding the lake, a large strip of land bordering the Colorado River to the south and Lake Mohave 67 miles south of Hoover Dam.
You can access the shores of Lake Mead from several locations off of route 166, also known as Lakeshore Scenic Drive, or from route 167 east of Las Vegas. You can access Lake Mohave from route 95 south of Las Vegas on the Nevada side or from route 93 southwest of Hoover Dam on the Arizona side.
The Lake Mead Recreation area offers opportunities for fishing, boating, swimming, camping, exploring the desert, or just plain sightseeing. The vision of a bright blue sea in the midst of a stark barren desert landscape is quite startling and beautiful. You can rent fishing boats, speedboats or houseboats at several locations on Lake Mead and on Lake Mohave. There is even an old-time paddlewheel steamboat that offers tours of Hoover Dam and Lake Mead or dinner dance cruises on the lake.
Las Vegas Tours
