Things To Do in Las Vegas

There’s no shortage of things to do in Las Vegas. It’s America’s party city. Gambling is legal in the state of Nevada and Las Vegas’s casinos are world-famous. Along with countless hotels and tourist attractions, Las Vegas is a magnet for domestic and foreign tourists.

Many of music’s greatest stars have performed residences in Las Vegas, from Elvis to Cher to Lady Gaga. Las Vegas is also popular for weddings - you can even get married in a pink Cadillac by an Elvis impersonator. Las Vegas doesn’t do subtlety. It’s a city where you go hard or you go home.

Casinos

When you think of Las Vegas you think of casinos. You may well call to mind De Neiro and Sharon Stone’s ill-fated affair in the movie Casino. Or Johnny Depp’s mind-altering jaunt through the city in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. So many iconic films have featured the bright lights of Vegas.

Do not lose the family home on the turn of a card, please. That being said, you should have a go on the slot machines. It’s a Las Vegas tradition.

Many of Las Vegas’s famous hotels double up as casinos and live entertainment venues. If you’d like to try the slot machines, consider AIRA. It’s the largest slots casino in town. The machines have different themes and different starting bets. Some pulls will cost thousands of bucks a pop. Some will cost much less than that!

Caesars Palace is a legendary casino and hotel. It’s a major reference point in American popular culture. It’s especially popular for sports betting. The casinos are all about leisure and pleasure. You can always have a drink and some food and watch everyone else frantically betting if you’d rather not risk your cash.

See a Vegas residency

Depending on when you visit, a pop icon or two may be treading the boards. Some faded stars will be having their career twilights in Las Vegas. We won’t name names - that would be rude - but it’s a known factor in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas pretty much invented the concert residency. Artists can pull in big bucks without the added cost of touring and an endless flood of tourists to entertain. Celine Dion, Elton John, Janet Jackson, Bette Midler, Bruno Mars, Mariah Carey and many more have performed recent Vegas residencies at the various hotels and casinos, such as Caesar's Palace. Tickets can be pricey and the biggest artists walk away with more money than some of America’s highest-paid CEOs.

Fountains of Bellagio

The dancing fountain is a well known Vegas attraction. It’s been featured in many films, notably Ocean 11. The Fountains of Bellagio takes the form of a daily show. There are regular 30-minute shows from 3pm until midnight. Music is played in synch with the dancing fountains. As with many Las Vegas attractions, it’s a campy ersatz version of something you’d find in the old world - namely the Trevi Fountain.

The Hoover Dam

Vegas isn’t all Elvis impersonators and dancing fountains. People live and work in Vegas - it’s a real place. For a bit of history, take a 40-minute trip from Las Vegas to the Hoover Dam. This concrete behemoth was built over five years by 21,000 workers at the behest of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The New Deal ushered in ambitious economic programs to pull America out of the Great Depression. The construction of this vast dam put a lot of people to work. It’s estimated that the dam could last for 10,000 years, perhaps surpassing human civilization. But without human intervention, it would probably run dry in a few years.

The Mob Museum

Las Vegas is associated with the mob. Think casinos, think Robert De Neiro/Scorsese/the mob - that whole spectrum of American culture. It’s as much a part of fiction as it is a part of history. So many films have told the stories of the major crime families.

Try and separate fact from fiction as the Mob Museum. Fittingly, it’s set in a former courthouse. As the mob once considered Las Vegas to be their city, it’s well worth visiting. Rather ominously, the museum contains an eclectic chair.

Explore Las Vegas’s gay bars

Naturally, Las Vegas has an impressive gay scene. The nightlife in this city is always buzzing - it has been for many decades. You’ll find a lot of nightlife along the famous Las Vegas Strip. It can be very busy and very touristy but it’s loads of fun.

Charlie’s Las Vegas is a country and western-themed gay bar. It’s close to many of the famous hotels and casinos. You sometimes see Drag Race alumni performing here, along with some impressive go go dancers.

If you want to party all night, Piranha is Las Vegas’s many gay club. It’s open until the early hours - really, around 5/6 am. Most clubs in the USA don’t have licenses to stay open that late, but this is Las Vegas and it’s designed for pleasure-seekers.