Known for
Casino resorts and round-the-clock entertainment on the Strip
Must-see landmarks
Sphere, the Fountains of Bellagio and Red Rock Canyon
Best time to visit
March, April, October and November, ahead of the extreme summer heat
Free to visit
Fountains of Bellagio and Fremont Street's shows
The Neon Museum preserves rescued casino and motel signs in its outdoor Boneyard, entered through the lobby of the 1961 La Concha Motel, designed by architect Paul Revere Williams and moved here in 2006. Guided tours run 45 minutes, and 31 of the signs are wired to glow after dark. Fremont Street Experience is an 18 minute walk south.
Fremont Street Experience runs beneath the Viva Vision canopy, a video screen suspended 90 feet above the pedestrian mall that spans several downtown blocks. Free light and sound shows play on the hour from 18:00 to 02:00 daily, with casinos, bars and street performers lining the mall below. The Mob Museum is a 6 minute walk northeast.
The Mob Museum opened on 14 February 2012 inside a restored 1930s neoclassical former U.S. Post Office and Courthouse, its four floors covering organised crime's history through interactive exhibits. The lower level houses the Prohibition-themed Underground Speakeasy and Distillery. Downtown Container Park is an 11 minute walk southeast.
Downtown Container Park charges no entrance fee and gathers shops and eateries inside repurposed shipping containers. Its steel praying mantis sculpture, The Mantis, anchors fire shows after dark, and children can climb through the free Treehouse play structure. Las Vegas's Arts District is a 23 minute walk southwest.
Downtown's Arts District, known locally as 18b, gathers galleries, antique shops and murals around Main Street. On the first Friday of every month the non-profit First Friday Foundation runs a free evening art walk with live painting and music through the neighbourhood's studios and streets.
The largest spherical building on Earth stands 366 feet tall beside the Venetian, its outer shell covered in about 1.2 million LED discs that turn the whole exterior, the Exosphere, into a screen seen from across the eastern Strip. Inside, a wrap-around 16K display and a beam-forming sound system stage concert residencies and immersive films; The Wizard of Oz at Sphere headlines the current line-up alongside acts such as the Eagles and Metallica. It opened in September 2023.
Architect: Populous · Opened: 2023
Location: 255 Sands Avenue, Las Vegas
Access: The Exosphere is free to see from the surrounding streets; shows inside are ticketed.
The lake in front of the Bellagio covers 8.5 acres of Strip frontage, and its fountains throw water as high as 460 feet from more than 1,200 jets, choreographed to a rotating playlist of opera, pop and film scores. The show has run since the resort opened in 1998 and stays free, watched from the sidewalk railing on Las Vegas Boulevard or from the pedestrian bridges at either end of the lake. Performances start every half hour from 3pm on weekdays and from noon on weekends, then every 15 minutes from 8pm to midnight, and a strong wind stops a show on the spot. The Conservatory inside the resort changes its garden with the seasons.
Lake: 8.5 acres · Jets: more than 1,200
Location: 3600 Las Vegas Boulevard South, mid-Strip
Access: Free; no ticket exists
Five blocks of old downtown Las Vegas sit under a barrel-vaulted canopy of LED lights, known simply as The Canopy, which runs synchronized shows above the crowd after dark. The pedestrian mall stays open around the clock, with free concerts and performances on three stages every night, buskers, and the vintage casinos of Glitter Gulch on either side. The SlotZilla zipline launches riders beneath the canopy as a separate paid attraction. The covered street opened in 1995.
Opened: 1995
Location: Fremont Street, Downtown Las Vegas
Access: Free and open 24 hours; the zipline and individual shows are ticketed.
Designed by Betty Willis in 1959 and never copyrighted, this Googie-style neon sign greets drivers at the south end of the Strip and has become the city's unofficial emblem. Silver dollars spell out the word Welcome, while the reverse reads Drive Carefully, Come Back Soon. It stands on a landscaped median with a small dedicated parking lot, and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Designer: Betty Willis · Style: Googie · Built: 1959
Location: 5100 Las Vegas Boulevard South
Access: Free, with a small parking lot; expect a queue for photos.
Red sandstone escarpments and desert trails spread across this protected area roughly 20 miles west of the Strip, managed by the Bureau of Land Management. A 13-mile one-way Scenic Loop Drive threads past the Calico Hills and the trailheads for hikes and rock climbing, with a visitor center at the entrance. From October to May the drive runs on a timed-entry reservation system booked through Recreation.gov.
Location: 1000 Scenic Loop Drive, Las Vegas
Access: Timed entry. Reservations are required for the Scenic Drive from 8am to 5pm, October 1 to May 31; seasonal hours and reservation details are on the BLM page.
An immersive entertainment complex off the Strip on Rancho Drive, AREA15 packs galleries, bars, rides and interactive art under one roof. Wandering the neon-lit central hall is free, while the flagship attractions, such as Meow Wolf's Omega Mart, a surreal supermarket that hides a sprawling art world behind its shelves, are ticketed. The venue opened in 2020 and keeps adding experiences.
Opened: 2020
Location: 3215 South Rancho Drive, Las Vegas
Access: Free to wander; individual attractions are ticketed. Open daily.
Seven towers of boulders painted in fluorescent colors rise from the desert about ten miles south of Las Vegas, near Jean Dry Lake beside Interstate 15. The Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone created the installation, which opened in 2016 as a two-year work and has been extended by popular demand. Each stacked column stands over 30 feet tall and glows against the brown Mojave landscape.
Artist: Ugo Rondinone · Opened: 2016
Location: Las Vegas Boulevard South near Jean, off Interstate 15
Access: Free, no reservation required; the official site confirms current opening.
Inside the Bellagio, a glass-roofed conservatory is replanted several times a year around seasonal themes, filling its beds with tens of thousands of flowers alongside oversized sculptures, water features and moving displays. A team of horticulturists rebuilds the scene for spring, summer, fall, winter and Lunar New Year. It sits just off the lobby, below a ceiling of Chihuly glass flowers, and admission is free.
Location: Bellagio, 3600 Las Vegas Boulevard South
Access: Free, open daily.
Officially the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, the Mob Museum traces the story of the American mafia and the agents who pursued it. It fills a restored former federal courthouse in downtown Las Vegas, one of the rooms where the 1950 Kefauver Committee held hearings on organized crime. Exhibits run from Prohibition to modern policing, and the basement holds a working speakeasy. It opened in 2012.
Opened: 2012
Location: 300 Stewart Avenue, Las Vegas
Access: Ticketed.
The Neon Museum collects the retired signs that once lit the Strip and downtown, arranging them across an outdoor lot known as the Neon Boneyard. Visitors walk among salvaged marquees from old casinos, motels and wedding chapels, some restored and relit, others left weathered. Timed tickets cover daytime visits and after-dark tours, when selected pieces glow again. The museum was founded in 1996.
Founded: 1996
Location: 770 Las Vegas Boulevard North, Las Vegas
Access: Ticketed, timed entry.
The High Roller turns slowly at the heart of The LINQ, just off the Strip, carrying passengers in 28 glass cabins on a single 30-minute rotation. At 550 feet it was the tallest observation wheel in the world when it opened in 2014, since surpassed by Ain Dubai. Views reach across the resort corridor toward the surrounding desert, and some cabins run as moving bars. An open-air promenade of shops and bars leads up to the boarding gate.
Height: 550 feet · Opened: 2014
Location: The LINQ, 3545 Las Vegas Boulevard South
Access: Ticketed.
The Wizard of Oz at Sphere plays Sphere on 7 September at 11:00.
Popovich Comedy Pet Theater plays V Theater at Planet Hollywood Inside the Miracle Mile Mall on 7 September at 14:30.
Jabbawockeez plays Jabbawockeez Theater at MGM Grand Hotel & Casino on 7 September at 17:30.
The Australian Bee Gees (Vegas) plays Thunderland Showroom at Excalibur on 7 September at 18:00.
Las Vegas Aviators vs. Sacramento River Cats comes to Las Vegas Ballpark on 8 September at 19:05.
Triplemania 34 comes to MGM Grand Garden Arena on 11 September at 19:00.
There is no entrance fee to browse the shops or let children loose on the free Treehouse play structure; only what is bought inside the individual stores and restaurants costs money.
The monthly First Friday art walk through the Arts District is free, with live painting, music and open studios; food and drink from the vendors along Main Street are sold separately.
Strolling the shopping centre's cobblestone streets under its painted sky ceiling is free; only a seat in one of the gondolas that glide down the quarter mile canal is ticketed.
Las Vegas began as a railroad stop, its townsite auctioned off on 15 May 1905 and the settlement incorporated as a city in 1911, according to the city's own account of its history. Nevada legalised gambling in 1931, the same year construction began on Hoover Dam east of the city, and the casino boom that followed built the Strip a few miles south of downtown, inside the unincorporated communities of Paradise and Winchester rather than the city itself. Downtown, centred on Fremont Street, kept the older neon-lit casinos that gave the city its early reputation.
The City of Las Vegas covers historic downtown around Fremont Street and the Arts District just south of it, while the resorts most visitors picture, Bellagio, Caesars Palace, the Venetian and Sphere among them, sit just outside city limits in Paradise and Winchester. Henderson, a separate city to the southeast, holds the road out to Seven Magic Mountains and a growing share of the valley's suburbs, and both the Strip and downtown lean on Clark County for many services despite feeling like one continuous city to a visitor.
Summers bring extreme heat, and the National Weather Service issues excessive heat warnings across the Las Vegas Valley through the hottest months, making spring and autumn far more comfortable for walking outdoors. Three to four days cover downtown's museums and the nearest Strip landmarks at an easy pace, with an extra day worth setting aside for an excursion out to Red Rock Canyon, Hoover Dam or Valley of Fire.
Downtown is compact and walkable, but the Strip is a separate, much larger district a few miles south, better reached by bus, monorail or rideshare than on foot in the heat. Nevada state law sets the minimum age for casino gambling and buying alcohol at 21, and anyone under that age is barred from loitering on a casino floor. The Strip itself lies outside the city limits in unincorporated Clark County, and the desert around it, from Red Rock Canyon to Zion, holds several of the best known places to visit in the United States.