The venues
- The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. The original and still the most theatrical: a Roman streetscape on three levels beneath a painted sky that cycles from dawn to dusk and back several times a day, with a spiral escalator and fountains with animatronic statues. It set the pattern that every other resort then copied.
- The Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian. Another painted sky, this time over a canal with gondolas and a reproduction of St Mark's Square. The gondola ride is the point of going, whether or not anything is bought, and the gondoliers sing.
- Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood. The largest by floor area on the Strip — some 475,000 square feet arranged as a circular route about 1.2 miles long, with over 150 units. It opened in 2000 as Desert Passage, themed as a North African port, and was renovated and renamed in 2007 when the Aladdin became Planet Hollywood. The refit deliberately moved it from luxury towards the middle of the market, and fragments of the old theming survive in corners.
- The Fashion Show Mall, opposite Wynn. The only conventional shopping centre on the Strip, anchored by department stores, and consequently the one residents actually use.
- Mandalay Place, on the bridge between Mandalay Bay and Luxor. Small and quiet, and almost entirely re-tenanted since the 2000s — so the shop names in older accounts no longer apply to any of it.
- The outlet malls. Las Vegas North Premium Outlets, near downtown, and Las Vegas South Premium Outlets. Neither is on the Strip and this is where the actual price reductions are. The northern one is the better of the two and is reachable on a bus from downtown.
- Downtown. Fremont Street for souvenirs, and the Downtown Container Park a few blocks east for independent shops.
What a British shopper needs to know
These are the points that actually affect what a trip costs, and none of them is obvious from inside a shop.
- There is no VAT refund. This is the most common and most expensive misconception. The United States has no national sales tax and therefore no national refund scheme for visitors — the sales tax added at the till cannot be reclaimed at the airport on the way home. A small number of states operate limited schemes of their own; Nevada is not one of them. Anyone budgeting on the assumption of a refund at departure is budgeting wrongly.
- Sales tax is added at the till, not shown on the shelf, so the displayed price is never the amount paid.
- Sizes do not match. British and American clothing sizes differ, and American shoe sizing differs again between men's and women's. Buying without trying on is a gamble of the kind this city already has enough of.
- Customs allowances apply on the way back. There are limits on the value of goods that can be brought into the UK without declaring them, and exceeding them means paying duty and VAT on arrival. The current thresholds are worth checking on gov.uk before filling a suitcase, because the savings disappear quickly once duty is due.
- Electrical goods generally will not work. American mains supply is 120 volts at 60 hertz, so anything without a dual-voltage power supply is useless in Britain even with an adaptor. Televisions, games consoles and media may also be region-locked or on the wrong broadcast standard.
Where the bargains actually are
Worth separating from the spectacle. The resort malls on the Strip are attractions in their own right and are priced accordingly — the Forum Shops and the Grand Canal Shoppes are built to be walked through and photographed as much as shopped in, and the rents are reflected on the labels.
The outlet malls, the Fashion Show Mall and the ordinary retail parks away from the Boulevard are where prices are competitive. The pattern is straightforward: the better the ceiling, the worse the price.
General practicalities for the city, including the sales tax and the heat, are on the Las Vegas page.