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 Las Vegas doesn’t offer the traveler distinct cultural experiences broken into geographic regions that are prevalent in other large cities. Yes, Vegas has a Chinatown (it’s a large, sort of strip mall with several restaurants and specialty stores festooned with oriental-style architecture), but no separate and distinct neighborhoods where you would go to find, say, good Italian food.
Instead of Nob Hill, Manhattan, Hollywood or the Magnificent Mile, Las Vegas gives you three regions for three different types of traveler: The Strip; Downtown; and the outlying casinos that market themselves as "locals" casinos.
The Strip, which, by the way, makes Las Vegas the only city in the world whose lights are visible from the moon, is the center of the action. Eight of the world’s 10 largest hotels are located on about five miles of Las Vegas Boulevard, and that number could grow tomorrow at the rate new hotel-casinos are being built. The Strip is where you’ll find the "classic" Las Vegas hotels like Caesars Palace, The Mirage, Circus Circus, the Flamingo Hilton and the rest of them that help define Las Vegas as the entertainment capital of the world.
Hotel rooms on the Strip are by far the most expensive, but you still can find some bargains. A couple of years ago I stayed at Circus Circus for $29 a night, and Excalibur has offered similarly low rates. I found Circus Circus hard to navigate at first and a bit drab, but the rooms are comparable to what you would find across the street at the more expensive Riviera or down the road a bit at the Flamingo. By way of comparison, a similar room at the Flamingo was $90 a night.
If you're coming for a convention, chances are you'll get a room in the hotel housing the convention. If your meetings are at the Convention Center, the Las Vegas Hilton is the only hotel within realistic walking distance. Otherwise, take your pick of hotels, because you're just a five- to ten-minute cab ride from the Convention Center.
The latest trend in Vegas is the upscale hotel-casino with world-class shopping and dining. New hotels such as Paris, the Bellagio and the Venetian fall into this category. Casino mogul Steve Wynn, fighting an uphill battle to create a sense of culture in Las Vegas, hangs several million dollars worth of classic artwork by such painters as Cezanne, Picasso, Monet and Van Gogh in his Bellagio's art museum. Parents of small children beware, though: No children are allowed inside. A museum employee told me kids once were welcome but Wynn caught one tot tearing through his treasure trove and he banned all of them. Now there is one day a week, for a couple of hours a day, that children are allowed inside. Call ahead to make plans.
The $5.99 all-you-can-eat buffets are still around, but hotel-casinos also offering some wonderful dining. World-class chef Emeril Lagasse owns the Venetian's Delmonico (where diners one night were treated to nude table dances with whipped cream and other condiments by a bevy of Robin Leach's young lady friends), and Emeril's inside the MGM. The Bellagio's restaurants also are terrific.
Once a somewhat seedier part of town, downtown has been renovated and is a viable alternative to the Strip. Rooms are generally cheaper and the casinos are virtually adjacent, which makes casino-hopping much easier than on the Strip, where the walk from Caesars to Treasure Island next door is enough to wear you out. The gambling also is better here, especially for blackjack players. Strip casinos almost exclusively use six-deck chutes that render card-counting almost impossible, and good luck finding a table on the Strip with a minimum bet smaller than $10. Downtown offers $1 and $2 minimums and many tables forgo the chutes in favor of single- or double-deck blackjack that offer players more favorable odds.
The Golden Nugget is the best of the downtown hotel-casinos, followed by the remodeled Main Street Station and Binion's Horseshoe, where each year the winner of the World Series of Poker walks away with at least a million dollars.
Several off-strip casinos compete for locals and other business, but only a few are worth staying at: any of the four Station casinos; the Rio; Sam's Town; the Santa Fe; the Fiesta; the Reserve; Jerry's Nugget; and the new Resort at Summerlin. The latter is by far the most upscale — rooms range from $300 to $500 — but this place is exquisite. It offers a 40,000-square-foot spa, great restaurants and the feeling that, even though there's a 50,000-square-foot casino inside, you're nowhere near slot machines. The resort also is adjacent to four of the city's best golf courses and at night offers a breathtaking view of the Strip.
Locals casinos generally offer the lowest room rates, and the rooms vary little from the functional Strip resort rooms. Gambling of any kind is best at these casinos as well. Blackjack and craps tables offer the most favorable rules and odds, and the slots seem to pay out much better than Strip machines. The only drawbacks to off-Strip hotels are their relative remoteness and their lack of good dining and shopping. Strip hotels have a monopoly on worthwhile shows with a single exception. Impressionist Danny Gans at the Rio is the best entertainment in town. There are restaurants at these off-Strip hotels, but these don't compare with the dining on the Strip or even downtown. However, if you're a budget-conscious traveler looking for the best gambling, you should consider staying at one of these off-Strip hotels. Take the bus or a cab, or rent a car, to see what the Strip has to offer.
Las Vegas can be an overwhelming sensory overload to the unprepared visitor. But if you don't gamble more than you can afford to lose, and if you mix in some shows and good food with your gambling, you'll get the most of your visit.
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