Las Vegas is a city of around 650,000 people in the Mojave Desert, at the centre of a metropolitan area of more than two million — and the thing almost every visitor comes for is not in it. The Strip, the four miles of Las Vegas Boulevard where the great resorts stand, lies outside the city limits altogether, in unincorporated Clark County. The city proper begins further north, around Sahara Avenue, and includes downtown and Fremont Street.
The heat, which is the thing to plan around
This is the single most consequential fact about visiting, and it is routinely underestimated by anyone arriving from a temperate climate. July has an average high of about 40°C, August around 39°C and June around 37°C — averages, not extremes. In July 2005 the city ran eight consecutive days above 45°C and touched 47°C.
It is a dry heat, with summer humidity often below ten per cent, and that is less of a consolation than it sounds: sweat evaporates before it is noticed, so dehydration arrives faster and with less warning than in a humid climate.
The sensible windows are mid-March to mid-April and mid-October to mid-November, when highs sit in the low to middle twenties. Winter days are mild, around 14 or 15°C, but the desert loses its heat quickly after sunset and January nights average about 4°C — which catches out visitors who packed for a warm destination and go out at ten in the evening.
Rain is close to irrelevant: roughly 105 millimetres a year spread over about twenty-six days, most of it in January and February. May and June typically get none at all. July can bring short, heavy thunderstorms when moist air arrives from the Gulf of California.
The costs that are not in the price
- Resort fees. Almost every hotel on the Strip adds a compulsory nightly resort fee on top of the room rate. It is generally not included in the figure shown by booking sites and it is collected at check-out. It is not optional, it is not a tip, and it can add a substantial amount to a week's stay. The quoted room rate should never be treated as the price.
- Parking. Most Strip resorts now charge for it, including for guests.
- Sales tax is added at the till rather than shown on the shelf, so the amount asked for is never the amount displayed.
- Tipping is a matter of convention rather than discretion — in bars, in restaurants, for housekeeping and for anyone who carries a bag.
Getting about
The Strip is about four miles long and the distances are deceptive. The resorts are enormous and set well back from the road, so a walk between apparent neighbours is routinely twenty minutes, a good deal of it through casino floors. Crossing Las Vegas Boulevard is done by footbridge rather than at street level, which adds escalators to every crossing.
- The Deuce, a double-decker bus, runs the length of the Strip and on into downtown. It is slow and it is the cheapest way along the Boulevard.
- The Las Vegas Monorail runs behind the resorts on the eastern side, between the MGM Grand and Sahara. It is quick, but it does not serve the airport and it does not reach the western side of the Strip.
- The Vegas Loop, a set of tunnels in which small electric cars carry passengers between stations under the convention centre and several resorts, is being extended. It is as much a curiosity as a transport system.
- Taxis and ride-hailing are everywhere. A car is unnecessary on the Strip and essential for the desert.
- Harry Reid International Airport — renamed from McCarran in December 2021, so older guides give the wrong name — is unusually close, a few miles from the southern end of the Strip.
What has changed, because the Strip rebuilds itself
Anything written about Las Vegas before 2020 is describing a different skyline. The significant recent changes:
- Allegiant Stadium opened in 2020 just west of the Strip, home to the Raiders.
- Resorts World opened in 2021 and Fontainebleau in December 2023, both at the northern end, where the Strip had been thin for years.
- Sphere opened in September 2023 behind the Venetian — a spherical venue whose entire outer surface is a screen, and which is now visible from a surprising proportion of the city.
- The Las Vegas Grand Prix has run each November since 2023, on a street circuit that includes the Strip itself. It closes roads for much of the month and fills every hotel.
- The Tropicana closed and was imploded on 9 October 2024. A ballpark for the Athletics is being built on the site, targeted for 2028.
- The Mirage closed on 17 July 2024 and is being rebuilt as a guitar-shaped Hard Rock, expected in 2027.
What there is to do, besides gamble
Gambling is the reason the city exists and is covered separately, along with how a casino floor is arranged and why. Everything else has grown up around it, and the range is wider than the reputation suggests.
- The shows. Cirque du Soleil has had resident productions here since 1993 and currently runs four: Mystère at Treasure Island, O at the Bellagio, KÀ at the MGM Grand and Michael Jackson ONE at Mandalay Bay. Mad Apple closed at New York-New York on 5 September 2026, and Love, the Beatles show, ended with the Mirage. Beyond Cirque there are long residencies by individual performers, and a great deal of magic and comedy.
- Eating. The all-you-can-eat buffet was the city's signature and is much diminished — a good many closed in 2020 and never reopened. What has replaced it is a serious restaurant city, with outposts of well-known chefs in most of the large resorts and a genuinely high standard at the top end. The practical consequence is that there is no longer any reason to eat in the same hotel for a week. There is a companion page on dining in Las Vegas at World Food and Wine, which is written for an American readership.
- Animals and aquariums. The Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay is the survivor. The Mirage's White Tiger Habitat and Siegfried and Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat have both gone — the habitat wound down as the resort did, and several of the dolphins were returned to SeaWorld San Diego. Older guides still send visitors to both.
- Shopping. The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace and the Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian, with their indoor gondolas, are attractions whether or not anything is bought. More under shopping.
- Heights. The STRAT — the Stratosphere until it was renamed in 2019 — still runs thrill rides at the top of its tower, and the High Roller observation wheel stands at the LINQ, halfway along the Strip.
- The National Atomic Testing Museum, east of the Strip — on the nuclear testing programme in the Nevada desert, and the most substantial museum in the city as well as among the least visited. It was renamed from the Atomic Testing Museum when it gained national designation, so older accounts give the shorter name.
Beyond the Strip
The mistake is to treat Las Vegas as the Strip and nothing else. Downtown and Fremont Street are older, cheaper and a different proposition entirely. Red Rock Canyon is half an hour west and is genuine desert. The Hoover Dam and Lake Mead lie to the east. The Grand Canyon is a long day out rather than a short one — the west rim is reachable in a day, the south rim is further and better given two.
Before travelling
British citizens visiting under the Visa Waiver Programme need an approved ESTA before boarding, applied for online through the official site, esta.cbp.dhs.gov. It requires an e-passport with a chip, it does not cover British Subject, British Overseas Citizen or British National (Overseas) passports, and it should be applied for as soon as travel is planned and at the very least seventy-two hours before departure. Third-party sites charge extra to forward the same application.
The pages in this section cover the hotels, the casinos, the shows, the shopping and what lies outside the city.
People visit Las Vegas, enjoy every minute of it, and move on.